IU Press makes texts available online

In an effort to keep up with growing digital technology demands, the IU Press is launching IU Press Online.

The program will feature about 300 titles of books and journals from five subject areas.

The five subject areas being launched on the Web site are African Studies, African American/Diaspora Studies, Jewish/Holocaust Studies, Philosophy and Russian/East European Studies, according to an IU press release.

Kathryn Caras, director of electronic series and publishing of the IU Press, said while the Web site is still under construction, it is important to note that the project, which is expected to be completed by the end of March or the first week of April, will not operate within a limited database.

Caras said users who want to access material on IU Press Online should take advantage of subscriptions and single title sales on the database, which includes individual libraries, a combination of libraries or the whole database.

“Our mission is to disseminate scholarship throughout the world,” she said. “One way to do this is to make information of global concern readily accessible to students and professors conducting research at an affordable price.”

Subscriptions, Caras said, can be set at a week, a month or a year, and textual materials are even more accessible for people with handheld devices. iPhones users can download requested materials from IU Press Online and will have until the end of their subscriptions to use the information.

Though IU Press Online will not necessarily take the place of student textbooks, the service will be rich enough in textual material to support research in certain areas of global scholarship, officials said.

“It’s perfect for grad students doing a dissertation,” said Pat Hoefling, marketing and sales director of the IU Press.

Hoefling said a source of inspiration for the creation of IU Press Online is credited to libraries’ becoming more electronic. She said many academic and general publishers that are still producing print media are migrating to the Internet and other electronic services for simpler access.

“Students and professors will finally be able to access current readings from academic publishers online anywhere,” Kate Matthen, assistant sales manager of IU Press, said in an e-mail. “They will be able to download whole books, do full text research on topics, and citing sources will become easy.”

She added that students will have easy, instant access to assigned readings and pages from e-books and students can use social networking bookmarks such as Digg and Delicious.

While still anticipating the launch of IU Press Online, Caras said future developments include launching an extensive music library, which she said she hopes will be available by fall 2009, in addition to an anthropology library.

Also possible are extensions on professors’ privileges with IU Press Online. Caras said this will incorporate a subscription plan that goes by semester and allows professors the space to review books to see if the material can be used in their classes.

Accessibility of materials on IU Press Online, however, is not limited to students and faculty at IU.

“What the print industry really needs is a cross platform that is all about efficiency and accessibility,” Caras said. “We want to do that with IU Press Online and make it where anyone around the world has access to simple research materials – anyone from Bloomington to Moscow.”