Pandoracampus is the digital e-learning platform provided by the publisher "il Mulino", which allows students to borrow 517 free of charge textbooks (as of May 27, 2024) in the fields of social sciences, humanities and technical-scientific subjects from the following publishers: il Mulino, ISEDI, UTET Università, Città Studi Edizioni, Carocci, Mondadori Università and Le Monnier Università. Over time, the collection will be increased with the addition of new textbooks.

Note: the textbooks are only available in Italian.

Thanks to a financial agreement negotiated by the University of Bologna with the publisher (a multi-user, time-limited license), which provides a specific amount of credits for digital lending, the platform enables users to study on both computers and mobile devices, even in offline mode, by synchronizing notes, bookmarks, exercises and questions. Pandoracampus additionally provides a dedicated area that can be customised according to the user's requirements, where students can create a calendar with their learning goals, consult textbooks and take learning assessment tests.

The service is available only for students. Professors can contact il Mulino to request a specific text.

 

Pandoracampus digital lending

Students may borrow, for a maximum of three months, a digital copy of a book and consult it for exam preparation. Students may withdraw their loan request within seven days of activation by writing to: arpac.pandoracampus@unibo.it.

Each user may borrow up to three texts at a time and each book can be borrowed by a maximum of fifteen users at the same time.

 

To access the digital lending service, please follow the instructions below:

  • go to https://www.pandoracampus.it/lending and click on "Login con IDEM" in the "Accedi" window;
  • select the University of Bologna from the list of available institutions, then enter your institutional credentials (@studio.unibo.it). Once logged in, you can browse the catalogue and find the book you're interested in by checking the list of available texts or using the search bar;
  • send a loan request by clicking on "Richiedi prestito" (Request Loan). An e-mail will confirm that your loan request has been accepted;
  • the textbook can also be returned early, after sixty days; in case, for example, you wish to activate the loan of a new textbook;
  • one week before the loan expires, you will receive an alert notification.

 

By accessing the platform, users can:

  • consult the textbooks in HTML format, highlight texts, take notes and add bookmarks;
  • access additional resources and self-assessment exercises;
  • print one "digital page unit" (defined by the publisher as a logical learning unit, corresponding to a chapter/section) at a time and up to a maximum of twenty-five "digital page units" from the textbook within a 30-day period;
  • copy the contents up to ten "page units" of the digital handbook within a 30-day period. The copy/paste function will automatically deactivate once the maximum allowed copy limit is reached.

 

How to consult the textbooks 

The "Consulta la biblioteca digitale" service allows users to consult limited portions of textbooks on Pandoracampus without activating a loan.

To access the service, please follow the instructions below:

  • go to https://www.pandoracampus.it/lending and click on "Login con IDEM" in the "Accedi" window;
  • select the University of Bologna from the list of available institutions, then enter your institutional credentials (@studio.unibo.it). Once logged in, click on "Consulta la biblioteca digitale" to access the consultation area;
  • search by keywords with the possibility of filtering by "Autore" (Author) or "Titolo" (Title);
  • each user can view limited text portions (approximately one page) with the following restrictions: three views per day, ten views per week and twenty views per month. The University has a monthly limit of 2.000 snippet views available for all users.

More information on how to use the platform for studying purposes can be found on the website.

Pandoracampus is optimised for Chrome use and compatible with the latest versions of most web browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge) and screen readers (Jaws, NVDA, Voice Over, Talk Back). Pandoracampus complies with the accessibility standards set by the Fondazione LIA (Italian accessible books) and uses the integrated reading tools available on the platform for both visually impaired and dyslexic users (https://www.pandoracampus.it/accessibility).

Pandoracampus has been acquired with the funds allocated by the President of the University Library System.