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E-Books for Visual Arts: About E-Books

Guide to the many E-Book resources available for art and architecture.

What is an E-book?

An e-book, or electronic book or digital book, is a book that is either an electronic version of a printed book or a book that was born digital, and which is accessable on a computer, e-reader or other mobile device.

E-book Formats

These are some of the most common e-book formats that you will encounter:

  • PDF - PDF, or Portable Document format, was created in the early 90s as a document sharing format. It is best for highly formatted content, images, and has the ability to support DRM (Digital Rights Management) content.
  • DOC - Some e-books come in the Microsoft Office Word format .doc
  • TXT - An e-book that is in plain text, readable by most devices.
  • RTF - Rich-text file that is also readable by most devices.
  • EPUB - An open e-book standard created by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). Features reflowable text, inline images, and supports DRM (Digital Rights Management) protected e-books, similiar to ADE (Adobe Digital Editions).
  • MOBI - A format primarily designed for PDAs and smart phones. Allows access to DRM and non-DRM content. Epub format can also be converted easily into mobi format.
  • AZW (Amazon) - Amazon's proprietary DRM restricted format is used solely for Kindle e-readers.
  • BBeB (Sony) - The proprietary e-book format developed by Sony and Cannon. BBeB filed include the following extensions: LRF, LRS, LRX. However, in 2010 Sony switched to epub as the default format for their e-book store.

See these Wikipedia pages for more information about e-readers and e-books:

These are also good sites:

Other Technical Information

Connecting to Yale's electronic resources remotely from off campus using VPN

Requesting an item in print from Yale Borrow Direct and Interlibrary Loan

Other technical support offered at Yale: