Meghan Murphy, Univ. Press finds new home on North Pleasant St., The Daily Collegian, January 27, 2005. Excerpt: 'The UMass Press, the book-publishing arm of the university, recently moved to a new home in the East Experiment Station on North Pleasant St...."For many years, we relied on University funds to cover the remaining portion of our expenses," said Bruce Wilcox, the director of the UMass Press Office. But during the budget cuts last May, "there were severe financial pressures on the University... and we were told that we could no longer depend on funding."...In order to extend the reach of its publications, the Press recently joined forces with the Google Print Program, a feature run by the popular search engine. "When you go to a bookstore, you rarely buy a book without browsing it first, and now you can do that electronically," said Wilcox. Google digitizes the Press's publications, scans them, indexes the content, and then places them on secure servers. Then, readers can search for a specific part of the book as well as browse two pages forward and back from their starting point. "In an age in which many students do their research by sitting in front of their computer, it's important that our books are accessible electronically," Wilcox added. The Press also recently became a part of a similar program through Amazon.com, whereby readers can search through an entire book online. According to Wilcox, this will boost the sales and reputation of the Press by helping readers to decide if they want to buy the book online. "With these huge companies competing to be your gateway to information, we want to work with them... we want to make our books as successful as possible."'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/27/2005 10:50:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
