eBooks

This page lists Library databases which contain ebooks covering philosophical topics. An ebook is a book which may be viewed online. In many instances the full text of the book is searchable. Four major Library databases containing ebooks are Oxford Scholarship Online, Cambridge Collections Online, Ebsco and Ebrary.

Oxford Scholarship Online

Oxford Scholarship Online contains a substantial number of philosophy titles from Oxford University Press. The database is full text searchable, and includes abstracts for books and chapters.

Philosophy Collection

Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, Religion and Culture

The Cambridge Collections Online contains specially-commissioned collections of essays addressing topics and figures ranging from Plato through Kant to Habermas, and philosophical movements such as the Scottish Enlightenment and German Idealism.

Palgrave Connect

The Religion and Philosphy collectioin contains books published by Palgrave Macmillan, 2000-2010.

Blackwell Reference Online

Blackwell Reference Online includes philosophy titles in the Blackwell companions series.

CredoReference

CredoReference contains a significant number of philosophy dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Audi, Robert, ed. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Flew, Antony, and Stephen Priest, eds. A Dictionary of Philosophy. London: Pan, 2002.
McLeish, Kenneth, ed. Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought. London: Bloomsbury Reference, 1993.

Ebsco

Philosophy titles are regularly purchased in Ebsco. A selection is listed below.

Carroll, Noel. Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction. London: Routledge, 2002.
Coetzee, J. M., and Amy Gutmann. The Lives of Animals. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Descartes, Renee. Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
Guyer, Paul, ed. Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment: Critical Essays. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Greek Philosophy to Plato. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.
Honderich, Ted. After the Terror. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press , 2002.
Howie, John, and George Schedler, eds. Ethical Issues in Contemporary Society. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995.
Kane, Robert. The Significance of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Midgley, Mary. The Ethical Primate: Humans, Freedom, and Morality. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Mulhall, Stephen. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Heidegger and Being and Time. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Narveson, Jan. Moral Matters. Peterborough, Ont.:  Broadview Press, 1999.
Plantinga, Alvin. Does God Have a Nature? Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette UP, 1980.
---. Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.
---. Warranted Christian Belief. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Quine, W. V. Word & Object. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1960. 
Regan, Tom. Animal Rights, Human Wrongs: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
Ross, Stephen. Art and its Significance: An Anthology of Aesthetic Theory. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984.
Russell, Bertrand. History of Western Philosophy. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2004.
Solomon, Robert C., and Kathleen Higgins. Age of German Idealism. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2003.
Sterba, James P., ed. Social and Political Philosophy: Contemporary Perspectives. London: Taylor & Francis, 2001. 
Thomson, Anne. Critical Reasoning in Ethics: A Practical Introduction. London: Routledge, 2002.
Walzer, Michael. Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994.
Warburton, Nigel. Philosophy: The Basics. New York: Taylor & Francis, 1999.
Watson, Richard A. Writing Philosophy: a Guide to Professional Writing and Publishing. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992.

Gale Virtual Reference Library

The Gale Virtual Reference Library is a collection of online reference books containing some titles of interest for philosophy.

Borchert, Donald M. Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2nd ed. Detroit, Mich.: Macmillan Reference USA, 2006.
Buswell, Robert E., ed. Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004.
Martin, Richard C., ed. Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004.
Miskelly, Matthew, and Jaime Noce, eds. Political Theories for Students. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale Group, 2002.
Post, Stephen G., ed. Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2003.

Other ebook databases

Aristoteles Latinus
Texts that have been critically edited in the printed Aristoteles Latinus series.

Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Early English Books Online includes more than 125,000 early printed works, covering the years 1475 - 1700.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
A digitised collection of every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom, 1701-1800, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. Consists of books, pamphlets, broadsides, ephemera.

Library of Latin texts
Almost all works published in the Corpus Christianorum, both Series Latina and Continuatio Mediaeualis, the literature from Antiquity Bibliotheca scriptorum Romanorum Teubneriana and 600,000 words for the modern period.

Medieval Sourcesonline
Contains annotated and edited fulltext medieval sources.

Oxford Reference Online
Contains subject encyclopedias and dictionaries published by Oxford University Press.

Past Masters
Past Masters is a collection of databases the Library subscribes to. The Library purchases individual databases within the collection.  Each database contains the full text of works by a philosopher, or group of philosophers. You may search a specific database, several, or all databases the Library has purchased.

Patrologia Latina
An electronic version of the Latin portion of the Patrologiae Cursus Completus, published by Jacques-Paul Migne, containing the works of the Latin Fathers, from Tertullian in 200 A.D. to Pope Innocent III in 1216, including all prefatory material, critical apparatus, indexes, and illustrations.

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Online philosophy encyclopedia.

Thesaurus Linguae Graecae
Full text database of primary sources of Greek literature from Homer to the 6th century A.D. Initially, each person must set up their own individual login account. When setting up a brand new account, a second screen will ask for some further information. After that initial set up, each person will need to enter only their username and password. From there, the search screen will come up.

How to cite an ebook

There are many citation styles. Each style might require different information is included in a citation for an ebook. The order and appearance of the parts within a citation might be different.

For the Chicago style include the same information as for a printed book, with the addition of the URL and the date accessed.

Chicago Bibliography

Author's last name, First name(s). Title. Place of Publication: Publisher, Date of publication. URL. Date accessed.

Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. New York: Knopf, 1999. http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/lib/auckland/docDetail.action?docID=2002145 (Accessed November 18, 2009).

Chicago Reference List

Author's last name, First name(s). (Date of publication.) Title. Place of Publication: Publisher. URL. Date accessed.

Sen, Amartya. (1999) Development as Freedom. New York: Knopf. http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/lib/auckland/docDetail.action?docID=2002145 (Accessed November 18, 2009).

Another factor to take into consideration when citing an ebook is that some databases require the name of the database as well as the URL and date accessed are included in the citation.

Author's last name, First name(s). Title of publication. Place of publication: Publisher, Date of publication. Name of database. Name of the publisher of the database. (date accessed) <URL>

If you are citing an ebook from a Library database always check to see if the database provides examples of how to cite the ebooks. A few examples for ebooks in a range of databases are listed below. If there is a discrepancy between a database citation example, and the manual for the style you are using, use the style manual.

MLA style

Handbook Of Conflict Analysis And Resolution. Edited by Dennis J. D. Sandole , Sean Byrne, Ingrid Sandole-Staroste , Jessica Senehi. Europa Publications,2008. Politics Online. Taylor & Francis.Wednesday, November 18, 2009 <http://www.routledgepoliticsonline.com.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/Book.aspx?id=w183>

MLA style

Aoki, Masahiko, and Yujiro Hayami. Communities and Markets in Economic Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Oxford Scholarship Online. Oxford University Press. 18 November 2009 <http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/10.1093/0199241015.001.0001>

"development n" The Oxford Business French Dictionary. Ed. Marianne Chalmers and Martine Pierquin. Oxford University Press, 2002. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Auckland University. 18 November 2009 <http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t109b.e2815>

Harvard style

'femme' 2007, in Collins French Dictionary Plus, Collins, London, United Kingdom, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://www.credoreference.com.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/entry/collinsfrench/femme>

APA style

femme. (2007). In Collins French Dictionary Plus. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/entry/collinsfrench/femme

To find out more

• Book a Library tutorial on how to search and use ebooks.
• Download the tutorial handout.