The Springer Book Archives now contain 72,000 titles
From the post:
Today at the British UKSG Conference in Bournemouth, Springer announced that the Springer Book Archives (SBA) now contain 72,000 eBooks. This news represents the latest developments in a project that seeks to digitize nearly every Springer book ever published, dating back to 1842 when the publishing company was founded. The titles are being digitized and made available again for the scientific community through SpringerLink (link.springer.com), Springer’s online platform.
By the end of 2013 an unprecedented collection of around 100,000 historic, scholarly eBooks, in both English and German, will be available through the SBA. Researchers, students and librarians will be able to access the full text of these books free of any digital rights management. Springer also offers a print-on-demand option for most of the books.
Notable authors whose works Springer has published include high-level researchers and Nobel laureates, such as Werner von Siemens, Rudolf Diesel, Emil Fischer and Marie Curie.Their publications will be a valuable addition to this historic online archive.
SBA section at Springer: http://www.springer.com/bookarchives
A truly remarkable achievement but access will remain problematic for a number of potential users.
I would like to see the United States government purchase (as in pay an annual fee) unlimited access to SpringerLink for any U.S. based IP address.
Springer gets more revenue than it does now from U.S. domains, reduces Springer’s licensing costs, benefits all colleges and universities, and provides everyone in the U.S. with access to first rate technical publications.
Not to mention that Springer gets the revenue from selling the print-on-demand paperback editions.
Seems like a no-brainer if you are looking to jump start a knowledge economy.
PS: Forward this to your Senator/Representative. Could be a viable model to satisfy the needs of publishers and readers.
I first saw this at: Springer Book Archives Now Contain 72,000 eBooks by Africa S. Hands.