ACE Portal: Accessible Content E-Portal

Connect to ACE and enter your token. 

The Accessible Content E-Portal (ACE Portal) is a collection (repository) of books that have been digitized and made available online in accessible formats for universities participating in the service. Trent is a participant.

Users who are registered with a documented print disability through Trent's Student Accessibility Services (SAS) are eligible to access to the ACE Portal. Inquire at the SAS office. 

This page provides general information about ACE; see the ACE Portal Guide for details.

What ACE Includes

ACE covers a part of your research that isn't already available: the print books on the Library's shelves.  Our Library must own the book in order for you to be able to access it through ACE.  This is necessary to comply with Copyright legislation.

Other options cover other material:

  • The Trent Library owns over 500,000 e-book titles, available to anyone. 
    • These are largely recent publications, found by searching the Library catalogue through Omni. Use the Availability filter to limit to "Available online" and the Resource Type filter for "Books & ebooks".
    • The majority are also available on the Scholars Portal Books website.
  • Course readings have a system in place through SAS. 
    • If you own a copy of a textbook or other required material (required for Copyright), SAS staff can usually obtain an alternative format copy for you.

How To Use ACE

  • Obtain an ACE token from the SAS office.  You must have a documented print disability to be eligible.  The token is valid for the academic year in which it's issued.
  • Connect to ACE (on the Scholars Portal Books website) and enter your token digits. 
    • Read and accept the "Terms of Use".  Continue to the Search screen.
    • Regular Scholars Portal Books are available to all Trent students. Your token login to ACE gives you access to a different set of e-books that have been digitized by request; they're on the same server, but only ACE users can access them.
  • Search for books.
    • Enter words from the title of a particular book you need.
    • Enter keywords to find any books available.
    • Be sure to leave "Show only content I can access" checked to view only Trent books.  There may be other books in the system that aren't available to Trent students.  (See how to request them.)
  • From the results, click on a book title for download options.
    • PDF
    • B&W PDF
    • DAISY
    • TXT
    • ePub

See more information on searching on the ACE Guide tutorials.

Requesting Books

The ACE repository provides access to books that satisfy two criteria:

  • they have been requested for digitization already, and
  • they are owned by the Trent Library.

There are books in repository that you might be able to see, but not download.  This is because they don't meet both criteria.  Should you have need of one of these books, we'd like to try and get it for you.  Email library@trentu.ca with your request.

  • If it is available through the Trent Library in print, but not available on ACE, request the addition of the title.  Depending on the book, it could be processed in a few days.
  • If it is available to others, but not downloadable to Trent, we'll consider purchasing the title to make it available.  This is dependent upon the cost and the relevancy of the book to other users.

Email library@trentu.ca with your request.

Acknowledgement

This portal has been developed through Scholars Portal, which provides technological resources and services for the 21 university libraries across Ontario. The ACE Project is focused on advancing equality for library users with print disabilities.

See how Scholars Portal digitizes print material in this Scholars Portal video Accessible Content ePortal Behind the Scenes.