Open Access Ebooks

Libraries, faculty, and researchers around the world celebrated Open Access Week from Oct. 22 to 28, 2012. SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (www.arl.org/sparc). organizes the program, now in its sixth year. The celebration provides an international forum for sharing the benefits of open access and inspiring wider participation in the open access movement. I decided to participate in Open Access Week 2012 by highlighting various open access ebook platforms on my blog, No Shelf Required (http:/ /libraries. wright .edu/noshelfrequired). In my research, I discovered a wealth of resources for open access books, many of them international in coverage with a variety of materials in multiple disciplines and languages. As I expected, once I began blogging about open access ebook collections, readers and followers sent me comments and suggestions for additional sources of open access ebooks. The focus of this column is to introduce a variety of open access ebook collections and initiatives. I haven\u27t included unglue.it, as I featured that in my May/June 2012 column. The collections and initiatives are listed with name, URL, and a brief summary of the content and purpose of the site. If you have suggestions for additional open access ebook collections, send them my way