History @ CUL

Project MUSE Electronic Books

Project MUSE from the Johns Hopkins University Press has long been an important source for journals in electronic form, but did you know that it is now offering university press monographs as well? The University Press Content Consortium, which initially comprised 66 academic publishers, is offering many of its titles through Project MUSE.

The utility of electronic monographs for humanists and social scientists has been a matter of debate, so as an experiment, the Library recently purchased a subset of the available titles. There are 773 titles available in electronic form in the following areas; the dates indicate the date of publication of the printed original:

• 2010, 2011, 2012 Archaeology and Anthropology
• 2011 Literature
• 2010 U.S Regional Studies
• Classical Studies (all years)
• Language and Linguistics (all years)

Project MUSE books are offered in PDF format, searchable and retrievable to the chapter level, with unlimited simultaneous usage, no digital rights management (DRM), and no restrictions on printing or downloading. Individual titles are listed in the library catalog.

The library is interested in receiving feedback on the desirability of acquiring more print monographs in electronic form and what improvements in functionality may be needed.  Some of the titles are available on multiple platforms.  For example, Jon Parmenter’s book, The Edge of the Woods: Iroquoia, 1534-1701 is available from both Project MUSE and from Ebrary. Which is better, and why?

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