Cornell Libraries, including Engineering, Math and Physical Sciences, have many ebooks in their collections.  Often there is a question regarding what devices can be used to read ebooks.  Our Earth Science and Engineering Librarian, Jeremy Cusker, recently answered a specific question on the Ask a Librarian  blog regarding Nook readers:

Q: I’m looking into buying an ereader and I was wondering if the Nook would be compatible with the ebooks available at the Cornell libraries?

A: CU Library buys access to ebooks in various formats depending on what the vendors provide. Some make their ebooks available in full or by chapter in self-contained PDFs. But others use proprietary reader or HTML formats that would be more difficult to access on a dedicated ereader device. Many of these non-PDF formats are very restrictive and do not allow significant amounts of downloading or printing (likely because vendors do not want to have their content circulated to non-subscribing individuals and institutions).

It’s probably worthwhile to have a look at some of the ebooks you might potentially be interested in in our catalog. If they’re available in PDF format, they should work with your Nook. Otherwise, you might expect to have some problems.

http://catalog.library.cornell.edu

Thanks, Jeremy!