Humanities Digital Library

The Humanities Digital Library is still in its early stages, but promises to be a useful source of open access material. Its web site states that:

The Humanities Digital Library is the open access library and catalogue for books published by the School of Advanced Study, University of London. It forms part of the School’s mission to embrace the opportunities of digital content delivery and enable greater access to knowledge. The Humanities Digital Library is managed by the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS).

Each book is available as an open access PDF (full text) but can also be purchased in print (hardback and paperback) or as an ebook (EPUB format). Scholarly content made available through the website includes monographs, edited collections and shorter form works.  

The first law book to be made available via the Digital Library is Electronic Signatures in Law by Stephen Mason.

New Open Access ebook initiative

Birkbeck College Library has joined at least 200 other institutions who have pledged funding to help cover the first copy costs of publishers participating in the Knowledge Unlatched ebook pilot. As a result, the titles in the ebook Pilot Collection are being released as Open Access upon publication. 

The Pilot Collection of 28 Open Access e-Book monographic titles is now available covering topics in the Humanities and Social Sciences from 13 scholarly publishers, including Bloomsbury Academic, Brill, Cambridge, Duke, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and Manchester University presses.

Whilst the pilot covers a small range of books, it is hoped that this way of financing ebooks will prove to be sustainable. One of the advantages of the collection is that the book can be downloaded in full and there are no limits on how much of the content can be printed out. 

Further information on the project can be found at: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/elib/knowledgeu 

OAPEN Library - free access to academic books

Open Access publishing, where content is freely available to readers has traditionally focussed on journals. A relatively new initiative, the OAPEN Library is looking at Open Access in relation to books.

The aim of the project is outlined on its web site:

The OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of Humanities and Social Sciences. OAPEN works with publishers to build a quality controlled collection of Open Access books, and provides services for publishers, libraries and research funders in the areas of dissemination, quality assurance and digital preservation. 

There are currently 135 titles within Law, of which 41 are in English. Although this represents a small number of titles, this is a relatively new venture, and content is currently being added. Publishers involved in OAPEN Library include Oxford and Manchester University Presses.