Four universities in Sweden acquire Springer Book Archives

Over 85,000 Swedish students, faculty members and researchers have access to tens of thousands of eBooks from the 1840s to 2004

Four major universities and research institutions in Sweden have adopted Springer Book Archives (SBA) Springer’s retrodigitized  eBooks.  Chalmers University, the University of Stockholm and KTH The Royal Institute of Technology have purchased the complete English-language selection consisting of more than 56,000 titles in eleven subject collections. The University of Borås has acquired six subject collections.

A significant number of Swedish students now have access to tens of thousands of eBooks on Springer’s online platform SpringerLink. The investments of these Swedish universities and research institutions underscore a strong digital library strategy, giving their patrons access to a broad range of high-quality eBooks.

Springer Book Archives is the most comprehensive eBook collection in science, technology and medicine and totals around 110,000 eBooks of which about half are in English and half in German.  It contains newly digitized titles published by Springer since its founding. This unprecedented collection of scholarly content is available without digital rights management and allows for full-text searchability. The eBooks offer a wide variety of reading options as they can be used on all devices, and can also be ordered through print on demand (POD), including MyCopy.

“We are happy to add parts of the Springer Book Archives to the Springer content that we already offer to students and researchers at our university library”, said Svante Kristensson, Director for Library and Learning Resources at the University of Borås.  “More than fifty percent of our total collection is now electronic, which makes us a truly digital library.”

“Springer greatly appreciates that libraries in Sweden recognize the value that Springer Book Archives offers their patrons in unlocking previously hard-to-reach original research and content. We are confident that these investments will contribute to a strong electronic content and collection development strategy to support discovery, research and reading in Sweden,” said Roné Robbetze, VP Library Sales Northwestern Europe at Springer.

“We are happy to be able to provide the Springer Book Archives to researchers and students of the institution. The content is highly relevant and providing scientific information in digital format ahead of print is part of the media and acquisition policy of the library. Accessibility, swiftness and relevance for the user is our highest priority. The Springer eBooks are also very user friendly and there are no limitations when it comes to downloading, printing, etc. which is of great importance. Furthermore it will enable us to reorganize and reduce our print titles as part of our collection development,” said Cecilia Heyman Widmark, Head of Department, Media Acquisitions and IT-Service, KTH – The Royal Institute of Technology.