Author: Bridget McCall
Between 6-16th March there will be a service update for the Digital Content Store affecting the library’s digitisation service for reading lists. Our Higher Education Copyright License allows the library to digitise sections from books and journals held by the library for use in reading lists. We can also request digitised sections from the British Library for titles that we don’t already hold.
During this period the library will be unable to process new academic requests for reading list digitisation. All existing digitisations will be unaffected by the update and can be accessed as normal from their reading list and the Kortext Reader. You can still make digitisation requests during this time but the library will not be able to action these until after 16/03/26. More information on how to submit a digitisation request and limits on requests.
When you access a Kortext e-book from your reading list, the library catalogue, or within the Kortext platform these items will be added to the Kortext bookshelf. For some texts the library may have purchased a copy of an e-book for specific students to use for the duration of their course. These books won’t be available via the library catalogue and instead students will receive a personalised link via email directly to the material. Kortext also host the Kortext Open Resources Collection which are free to access online textbooks and educational materials that you can browse within the reader. E-books added to your shelf will keep your place so you can easily start reading again from where you left off.
The Kortext Reader is designed to allow easy note-taking. From within an ebook or document you can highlight relevant sections in a range of colours and make notes or bookmark sections as you go. These notes will appear in the panel to the left of the screen and you can easily navigate back to these sections by clicking on the relevant note. You can also export all your notes from an individual title to your chosen email, or save individual notes to Onenote. More information on using these tools.
The reader has a range of functions to improve accessibility. These include options to change the size, font and background colour of the text to make the document easier to read. Kortext also offers read-aloud and translation functionality. You can also import other PDF documents to ‘My Files’ to keep these in one place and use the additional functions of the reader.
The Advanced functions of the Kortext Reader will also pause from the 12th of March while the service is updated. Kortext have not confirmed how long services will be unavailable but they will release an update when they are reinstated. If you or your students rely on these tools for improving accessibility when accessing PDFs, or for note-taking you can find alternative services and tools in the Disability Services Toolkit.
Author: Bridget McCall
