HEB Enters the History of the Book in America

In their authoritative essay, "The History of the Book in America" in the newly published The Oxford Companion to the Book, (ed. Michael F. Suarez, SJ and H.R. Woudhuysen, 2 vols. [Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2010], 1:425-42), Scott E. Casper and Joan Shelley Rubin survey and analyze the history of book production and culture in America from its 17th-century beginnings into the 21st century. They trace trends and milestones from John Eliot's Indian Bible (1661-63) printed in Cambridge, MA, through Benjamin Franklin and Peter Zenger, through the growth of Harper, Putnam, Houghton Mifflin, Lippincott, Holt, Knopf and Random House, Time-Warner and the other great American presses of the 20th century. In their survey they discuss the industrial book, literacy and modes of reading, the public library, trends in publishing, marketing and reading, consolidation and globalization, and conclude with a section on "The Future of the Book." Desktop publishing, POD and e-books follow in rapid succession, culminating in several examples of this future: Stephen King, Google Book, and (in some detail, p. 441) the American Council of Learned Societies' "History E-book project" (now, of course, ACLS Humanities E-Book). We're impressed to find ourselves in such good publishing and historical company and to be publicly recognized as a culminating element of the history of the book in America.

Directors to Introduce HEB Portal at ALA

HEB will be attending this year's ALA Midwinter meeting in Boston, MA, from January 15 to 18. In its review of ACLS Humanities E-Book (September 2009) the Institute of Historical Research (London) called HEB "one of the best - if not the best - electronically accessible sites in the humanities." For its tenth anniversary, HEB is now completing details for a "universal" collaboration with university presses and learned societies to create a collection with complete publisher lists and a new purchase and perpetual access model. This new "HEB Portal" will facilitate the distribution of scholarly monographs and related materials to the scholarly and library community. Please visit Booth 2553 to discuss details with Directors Eileen Gardiner and Ron Musto.

Directors Announce HEB Portal at CNI

HEB Directors Eileen Gardiner and Ron Musto presented a session at the annual meeting of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) in Washington on December 14. At the session they rolled out our evolving ideas for the HEB Portal: a universal press participation plan that would facilitate the digital publication and distribution of complete, new publisher lists to the scholarly community. The plan has been well received so far, and the CNI panel helped move key questions forward. More detailed discussions with publishers and librarians are progressing.

Read a live blog of the panel.

Download the complete presentation in PDF format.

Participate in Survey to Test HEB Titles on E-Book Readers!

ACLS Humanities E-Book invites you to participate in a survey, which has been designed to test the viability of presenting titles from our online collection in new formats for use on various handheld e-book readers, including the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, and Apple iPhone. Your participation will help us to gather valuable feedback on the use of scholarly titles on handheld devices.

Please visit www.humanitiesebook.org/handheld.html to download one or more free HEB titles to your e-book reader and to access the survey.

To thank you for your time and considered responses, we'll be doing a raffle drawing for three $50 gift certificates to a retailer of your choice: Amazon, Sony, or Apple. Be sure to fill out the contact information on the last screen of the survey to enter the raffle. Individual responses are strictly confidential. The overall results and analysis will be made available in a subsequent white paper. Thank you for your participation. ACLS Humanities E-Book

HEB Conference Attendance Schedule 2009-2010

ACLS Humanites E-Book will be attending and exhibiting at several conferences this year. The current schedule is as follows:

Conference of Administrative Officers (CAO) of the ACLS

November 5-8, 2009

Portland, OR

Directors Eileen Gardiner and Ron Musto will be speaking.

Coalition for Networked Information Fall 2009 Membership Meeting

December 14-15, 2009

Washington, DC

Directors Eileen Gardiner and Ron Musto will be speaking on December 14th.

ALA 2010 Midwinter Meeting

January 15-19, 2010

Boston, MA

HEB will be at booth #2553.

HEB Receives Rave Review from IHR

"One of the best - if not the best - electronically accessible sites in the humanities" -Institute of Historical Research.

HEB has just received a rave review from the prestigious Reviews in History of the Institute of Historical Research, London.

Mark Herring of Winthrop University traces the history of Humanities E-Book, its place within the scholarly mission of ACLS, its broad-base coalition of university presses and learned societies, its emphasis on the quality of the collection, its user-friendly interface and search engine, innovative XML titles, very reasonable pricing and its close attention to details such as free MARC records, citation methods and other metadata. The review gives ACLS and HEB the highest praise for their work within the digital humanities:

"...ACLS has gone about its work to put together people and books to create the best possible site. Suffice it to say that numerous other groups and organizations work together to make HEB one of the best - if not the best - electronically accessible sites in the humanities. It surely stands as an equal to JSTOR, MUSE and other contenders to this throne."

MLA Joins HEB as Participating Society

ACLS Humanities E-Book is pleased to announce that the Modern Language Association has become our twentieth partner in moving forward to investigate new types of scholarly online materials, distribution, and access models. According to MLA Executive Director Rosemary G. Feal, "The MLA looks forward to collaborating with ACLS Humanities E-Book in its efforts to make electronic publications more widely available to scholars. We are pleased that through this partnership MLA members will have access to HEB's growing collection of titles at a reasonable price."