Springer Electronic Book Package

By The Springer e-Book Task Force

The UC campuses have recently obtained perpetual access to nearly every Springer ebook published in English and German from 2005 to 2009, including Landolt-Bornstein, the largest compilation of data in physics and chemistry.  The collection includes nearly 20,000 books from every scientific discipline and many social sciences.

The licensing terms are in line with the UC Libraries’ Guiding Principles for Collecting Books in Electronic Format (http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/cdc/taskforces/ebooks_final_report.pdf)” Collection Development Committee, May 2008″ including favorable Interlibrary Loan provisions, perpetual access, unlimited concurrent users, and digital rights management (DRM)-free PDF format.  In addition, the interface is familiar to users, as we have been subscribing to journals on SpringerLink for several years.
Books are available in the following categories:

• Architecture and Design 
• Behavioral Science 
• Biomedical and Life Sciences
• Business and Economics 
• Chemistry and Materials Science
• Computer Science
• Earth and Environmental Science
• Engineering
• Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
• Mathematics and Statistics
• Medicine
• Physics and Astronomy
• Professional and Applied Computing

(There are a few books from 2005 to 2009 that are not accessible because they are jointly published with another publisher, and excluded from this project.)
The books will be linked from campus catalogs as well as from Melvyl, UC-eLinks and Google Scholar. They can also be browsed or searched directly at http://springerlink.com/.

This pilot will be used to study the viability of ebooks as a replacement for print books, including such factors as determining:

• which disciplines are more and less conducive to the use of electronic books
• which types of books might be more appropriate as ebooks
• which types might be less likely to be used in this format

A shared UC print copy of each of the books has been included in the package and it will be possible for users to order a print copy of any of the available books for $24.95 from Springer’s Print on Demand Service (MyCopy).

If you have questions and concerns please visit the Inside CDL page below for this resource.  You will find there a list of contacts including your campus contact.   You will also find a press release for your users, a poster/flyer and information about training as it becomes available.  The page is available at http://www.cdlib.org/inside/projects/springerebooks/.

Further communications with more specific information will be going out to specific functional groups such as Collection Development, Acquisitions, Interlibrary Loans and Technical Services.