New Titles and MARC Records Now Available

ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) just added 323 titles to our online platform as part of our Fall 2016 title release, bringing our collection to 5,000 books.

Our latest round of books includes:

• Additional offerings from some of our longstanding publishing partners: 54 books from Harvard University Press, 40 from University of California Press, 26 from Cambridge University Press, 23 from Princeton University Press.
• Fifty-one titles from our new collaborating publisher Berghahn Books; as well as a selection of titles from other first-time contributors Temple University Press, University of Hawaii Press, Fortress Press, Orbis Books, Arden Press, Northwestern University Press, and Liverpool University Press.
• Twenty-nine titles authored by ACLS Fellows.
• Expanded offerings in areas of scholarship including Women’s Studies, Gender Studies, Latin American Studies, Environmental History, Architectural History, and Animal Studies.
• New additions to the ACLS Centennial series, which commemorates the founding of the organization in 1919, as well as the Fordham Perspectives in Continental Philosophy series.
• One hundred twenty-nine titles that have received awards from a number of ACLS constituent societies.

MARC Records 

MARC records for the new additions are available on our website for downloading and integration with library holdings. Librarians at HEB’s subscribing institutions may access these by following this link to download a zip file containing records corresponding to our newly released round 13 titles. New subscribers or those who have not recently updated their MARC records for the collection should instead download the cumulative file acls1-13.zip (covering all titles in rounds 1-13).

If downloading the new records only, please be sure to also remove the four MARC records corresponding to titles removed in this round from your library catalog. These can be found in a file called acls13_REMOVED.zip. A list of all titles removed from the collection to date can be found here.

For any additional questions regarding cataloging and MARC records, don’t hesitate to contact us at subscriptions@hebook.org.

Fall 2016 Platform Improvements

ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) is pleased to announce a number of recent functionality improvements to our online interface that we hope will create a better user experience.

Readers now have the option of exporting citations through the “Copy citation” tool, as well as instantly sharing these via a number of reference managers and social media outlets. It is now also possible to annotate any title in the collection by using the free hypothes.is tool, an open platform allowing for note-taking on top of online resources across the web that have enabled this feature. To make annotations and comments, it is necessary to first create an account or sign-in by clicking the right arrow button at the top of the hypothes.is sidebar.

Look for further functionality and design enhancements to be added to HEB in the future as we continue to upgrade our platform.

HEB Pricing for 2017

ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) has just announced its new pricing for the upcoming calendar year. Pricing for 2017 reflects a moderate increase for all subscription tiers to address the significant collection growth over the past three years, from just under 4,000 titles to 5,000 titles with our upcoming fall release. You can find details on new prices, going into effect January 1, our website.

As many of our top-hit titles—you can see the most recent list here—include books frequently acquired in print by academic librarians for use by faculty and students, for most subscribers there are considerable financial advantages to subscribing to the HEB collection. Online access for the entire university community eliminates the need not only to add an adequate number of copies of in-demand titles to a library's holdings, but also consistently having to purchase replacement copies for print books that are lost or damaged.

As a result of our growing collection as well as HEB's efforts to optimize usage among its subscribers, we are happy to report a usage uptick of 20% between the second half of 2015 and the first half of 2016. Collection usage is thus at an all-time high.

HEB is eager to ensure our subscribers are getting the most out of our resource. Whether you are an existing subscriber or thinking of subscribing, and would like to schedule a webinar to have our staff provide you with an overview of the collection, please contact us at subscriptions@hebook.org and we'd be happy to set this up.

HEB's Top Ten Titles for January 2016-June 2016

For the first half of 2016, Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities is once again at the top of the list of most frequently accessed books in the ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) collection, as has been the case for the past several periods. Clifford Geertz's  The Interpretation of Cultures and Henry Jenkins's Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, this time in second and third place respectively, have also tended to consistently appear near the top.

New to this list are three diverse books: Empires in World History by Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, a volume detailing how empires predating the modern nation-state relied on differences among populations in order to wield power, and winner of the 2011 World History Association Bentley Book Prize; Silencing the Past by Haitian anthropologist Michel-Ralph Trouillot, an examination of how history is both written and selectively silenced by historians; and National Book Award Finalist Neighbors by Jan Tomasz Gross, which investigates an incident in which Jewish citizens in a German-occupied Polish village during World War II were murdered not by the occupiers, but by fellow Poles.

1. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Verso, 2006)
2. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (Basic Books, 1973)
3. Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York University Press, 2006)
4. Burbank and Cooper, Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (Princeton University Press, 2010)
5. Hahn, A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (Harvard University Press, 2003)
6. McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (Routledge)
7. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton University Press, 2004)
8. Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Beacon Press, 1995, 2015)
9. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (Princeton University Press, 2001)
10. Ehret, The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800 (University Press of Virginia, 2002)

HEB’s Latest Participating Publisher

ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) has been joined by an additional publishing partner who will be participating in its upcoming fall title release, Temple University Press. Temple is contributing eight titles to be added to our platform, which include books in dance and performance history, film and media studies, and religion.

Temple University Press was founded in 1969, and focuses on works in the humanities and social sciences, as well as regional titles about Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley. It was an early publisher of books in urban studies, women’s studies, cultural studies, and ethnic studies, and continues to be a forerunner in emerging fields such as disability studies and animal rights.

HEB Social Media Efforts

If your institution is an ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) subscriber or if you are interested in and passionate about the humanities, HEB has your back!  Follow the latest HEB news on any one of our social media pages or sign up for HEB's newsletter, Oh the Humanities.



HEB has been revamping efforts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest to connect better to our users and the pulse of the scholarly community.  HEB's Facebook and LinkedIn pages are great for discussions about topical news in the humanities, libraries, and academic scholarship. HEB’s Twitter handle @ACLS_HEB keeps subscribers and users updated with everything going on at HEB...whether it is our upcoming fall release or catching Pokémon around the office. And librarians love our Pinterest boards to see titles in some of the most trending subject lists in the HEB collection, as well as what is going on at ACLS.

For reading delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our monthly newsletter by writing to subscriptions@hebook.org, and don't forget to subscribe to this blog to read in depth about the latest developments specific to HEB.  So what are you waiting for? Join the humanities conversation and follow HEB online! 

New Titles Forthcoming in 2016

ACLS Humanities E-Book's (HEB) upcoming fall 2016 title release will be comprised of 321 books covering a wide range of subject areas, and will include contributions from publishing partners old and new. 

Here are some highlights:

• 54 titles from Harvard University Press
• 51 titles from new collaborating publisher Berghahn Books
• 40 titles from Princeton University Press
• 26 titles from Cambridge University Press
• 29 titles authored by former ACLS Fellows
• Expansion of coverage in areas of scholarship including Women's Studies, Gender Studies, Latin American Studies, Environmental History, Architectural History and Animal Studies
• New additions to the ACLS Centennial and Fordham Perspectives in Continental Philosophy special series
• 129 titles awarded by scholarly societies for outstanding scholarship in their fields

For additional information on these forthcoming books, please contact us at info@hebook.org.

HEB at ALA Annual 2016

ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) will be an exhibitor at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Orlando, June 24-27. Visit the conference website to register for this year's meeting.

Find us at Booth 1212 for Friday night's opening reception, or any time during the conference. We'd be happy to share information about our upcoming fall title release of over 300 books, or answer any other questions you might have about the HEB collection. If your library is thinking about subscribing, we'd love to set up a free trial for you. If you already have the HEB collection, we welcome any feedback; it's always great to hear from our subscribers. Plus, stop by and enter our raffle for a chance to win a Chromebook!

If you prefer, you can also schedule an appointment by dropping us a line at subscriptions@hebook.org.

HEB at ATLA Annual Conference

ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) will be an exhibitor at the ATLA Annual Conference in Long Beach, June 15-18, 2016. Come find us at Booth 31.

The American Council of Learned Societies and the American Theological Library Association have had a long and cordial relationship dating back to the 1940s with the inception of ATLA. ATLA and HEB have now partnered together to bring forth a highly regarded collection of e-books designed to support religious scholarship. The ATLA Special Series will be a fully searchable subset of the larger ACLS HEB collection, and will not only represent an essential resource to ATLA members but offer them the opportunity to play a role in future content curation.

Please join Lee Walton from HEB and Evan Boyd from The Chicago Theological Seminary on Thursday, June 16, at 4:00 pm as they discuss this new initiative and how HEB is working to become your e-book resource.

Additional Participating Publishers for 2016

ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) is very pleased to announce partnerships with four additional publishers for its fall 2016 title release.


These include Berghahn Books, an independent publisher of peer-reviewed scholarly books and journals in the humanities and social sciences; Fortress Press, a division of the Christian publishing house Augsburg Fortress that focuses primarily on Biblical Studies, Theology, and Christian History; Northwestern University Press, specializing in Continental Philosophy, Slavic Studies, Literary Criticism, and European and world classics; and Orbis Books, the publishing arm of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, with a focus on Theology and Catholic life across cultures and traditions.

HEB's diverse list of publishing partners now totals 124 participating presses. Read more about our contributing publishers here, and look for additional details regarding our upcoming title release in the coming months.

HEB at ACRL New England Annual Conference

ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) will be exhibiting at the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) New England Chapter Conference on May 13, 2016, at the Radisson Hotel Manchester Downtown (Manchester, NH). Come find Lee Walton, HEB’s National Library Account Manager, at our booth in the ballroom. Whether you're a current subscriber or interested in finding out more about HEB, we're very happy to answer your questions.

The theme of the conference is "Holistic Librarianship: Broad Thinking for Diverse and Creative Solutions". You can find more information about the event here.

HEB's Top Users for 2015

Below is our list of the twenty-five institutional subscribers to ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) with the highest usage for 2015, including many established institutions of higher learning both in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to international subscribers in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, Copenhagen University in Denmark also makes a noteworthy appearance on this list.

For a complete list of current subscribers, please see this page.

1. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
2. University of Toronto, Canada
3. Columbia University
4. York University, Toronto, Canada
5. Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
6. Harvard University
7. University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
8. University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
9. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
10. McGill University
11. University College London, UK
12. University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
13. Yale University
14. University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK
15. Stanford University
16. University of Texas, Austin
17. University of Sydney, Australia
18. New York University
19. University of California, San Diego
20. Durham University, Durham, UK
21. University of California, Berkeley
22. The University of Chicago
23. London School of Economics, UK
24. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
25. Copenhagen University, Denmark

Please note: Usage statistics reflect both page views and searches.

New Participating Publishers for 2016

Three additional publishers will partner with ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) for its upcoming Fall 2016 title release. Liverpool University Press, Arden Press, and University of Hawaii Press will contribute titles from a range of research areas to the collection.

HEB now has partnerships with 120 publishers. The list of participants in our network of university and commercial presses can be found here and is expected to continue to grow in the coming months.

Collection Development Survey Results

HEB recently asked our subscribers to participate in a survey designed to assist in expanding our title list to reflect both underrepresented areas of study and currently popular interests in scholarship. In response we received feedback from 362 respondents at subscribing institutions.

We conducted a similar survey in 2012, and we’ve seen significant shifts in this year’s data. Of the five fields we identified as “trending” in 2012, only two—Film and Media Studies and American History—remain in this year’s top five. (No longer among the top trending fields: Art and Architecture, Latin American History and Literature.) Areas experiencing new growth in popularity include Women’s Studies, LGBT/Queer Studies, and Environmental History. When asked about areas in which their collections should expand, librarians identified deficits in LGBT/Queer Studies, African History, Environmental History, Native American Studies and Middle Eastern History.

These results seem to indicate that certain areas—particularly LGBT/Queer Studies and Environmental History—are growing rapidly while remaining underrepresented in library collections. At the same time, perennial mainstays like American History are experiencing increased interest but remain well-represented. At HEB, we will use these findings to continue to develop our collection in both established and emerging areas. We thank everyone who took part in the survey.

If you would like a sample of HEB’s offerings in the abovementioned areas, please see the following links. We have assembled Pinterest boards that highlight HEB’s titles in Film and Media Studies, LGBT/Queer Studies, Native American Studies, African Studies and Colonial American History.

HEB's Top Ten Titles for July 2015-December 2015

Twice a year, HEB publishes a list of our ten most-accessed titles. We’ve seen certain books become regulars on the HEB “bestseller” list, and newcomers to the list have alerted us to emerging trends in scholarly research.

For the second half of 2015, two titles make their top-ten debut. Robert Darnton’s The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History details an eighteenth-century workers’ protest and is inspired by the work of Darnton's colleague, Clifford Geertz, who wrote one of our perennial bestsellers. The other new addition for this six-month period is Manliness & Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917, by Gail Bederman. By focusing on four prominent Americans of the time, Bederman explores notions of masculinity in flux at the turn of the century. The popularity of this work underscores a growing interest in the study of gender and race, as has been demonstrated by many other titles on our lists.

1. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Verso, 2006)
2. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (Basic Books, 1973)
3. Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York University Press, 2006)
4. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton University Press, 2004)
5. Brown, Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn (University of California Press, 1991)
6. Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (Harvard University Press, 1999)
7. McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (Routledge)
8. Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (Basic Books, 1984) 
9. Bederman, Manliness & Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 (University of Chicago Press, 1995)
10. Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Makings of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 (Basic Books, 1994)

PSP 2016 Annual Conference

ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) will be attending the Association of American Publishers' (AAP) 2016 PSP Annual Conference, "The Agile Publisher: Integration, Innovation & Transformation," in Washington, DC, February 3-5, 2016. More info about the event is available here.

If you are among the publishers attending, and would like to meet with HEB, please contact us at info@hebook. We'd love to hear from you.

HEB Content is Available Only Through HEB

Happy 2016 from ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB)! We wanted to take this opportunity to thank our subscribers and remind them that, although HEB collaborates with a number of discovery services by providing them with metadata for our books, our curated title list is not available via any other aggregators, and viewing a title is possible only through direct authorization by us of a subscribing institution’s IPs. Simply put, the only way to access the HEB collection is to subscribe to HEB.

Furthermore, the content offered on our platform is for the most part unduplicated. Our research shows that an average of 90% of the HEB collection is unique and does not overlap with the title lists made available by a number of other providers (such as JSTOR, Project MUSE, ebrary, EBSCO Academic and EBL Ebook Library). The HEB collection is centered on backlist titles of enduring value to research and teaching, and HEB frequently offers the only digital versions of these books currently available.

For more info on accessing the collection, please contact subscriptions@hebook.org.