STM publisher Springer has announced that the Waseda University Library, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan, has acquired the English-language Springer Book Archives (SBA). Members of the university community now have online access to Springer content dating back to 1842 via SpringerLink, Springer's online platform. This is the first such purchase, not only at a Japanese university or research institute, but in all of Asia.
The SBA is an eBook collection of newly digitised historic titles published by Springer since its foundation. Currently, the English collection comprises more than 43,000 eBooks, which will increase to 50,000 when the SBA project is completed at the end of 2013 as planned.
This unprecedented collection of historic scholarly content is available without digital rights management and allows for full-text searchability. The eBooks offer a wide variety of reading options since they can be used across devices, and can even be ordered through print on demand (POD). By offering a POD option for most of the titles, Springer is also bringing books unavailable for decades back to bookshelves.
When Springer launched its first eBook collections in 2006 (containing books published since 2005), Waseda University Library acquired all collections, in all disciplines. With the purchase of the SBA, all English titles from Springer, ranging from rare books that were out-of-print in the past, to titles just published, will be available at the Waseda University Library.
Waseda University Library has a history of over 130 years since it was founded at the time the university's predecessor Tokyo Senmon Gakko opened in 1882. The university has more than 20 libraries and library rooms throughout the campus such as the Central Library, holding more than 5,500,000 publications. One of the largest university libraries in Japan, Waseda University Library has about two million visitors, borrowing about 900,000 books in total every year.
