4,000 Newly-free PDF Titles from National Academies Press!

June 2, 2011 8:36 AM

As of June 2, 2011, all PDF versions of books published by the National Academies Press (NAP) will be downloadable free of charge to anyone. This includes the current catalog of more than 4,000 books plus future reports published by NAP.

"Free access to our online content supports the mission of NAP--publisher for the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council--to improve government decision making and public policy, increase public education and understanding, and promote the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in matters involving science, engineering, technology, and health. In 1994, we began offering free content online. Before today's announcement, all PDFs were free to download in developing countries, and 65 percent of them were available for free to any user."

posted by ZenMasterThis (14 comments total)

Always glad to hear about new (free) e-books. Any recommendations on particularly good things from folks who are familiar with the catalog?
posted by jquinby at 8:45 AM on June 2, 2011

Can someone recommend something of specific from this catalog? Many of these books seem like policy-oriented work, titles using the phrase 'pathways to X', which I'm less interested in reading than, say, anything else.
posted by serif at 8:49 AM on June 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Can someone remove the trickery from the first link for people whose employers' internet proxies don't like URL shorteners?

Metafilter doesn't have an arbitrarily small size limit on comments. No need to behave as though it does.
posted by emelenjr at 8:59 AM on June 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Physics.

Applied Technology.

Climate.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:06 AM on June 2, 2011

The very long NAP link in the FPP ends up at exactly the same location as the much shorter www.nap.edu (i.e. the NAP homepage). Was it supposed to be deeplinking to something on the NAP site?
posted by RichardP at 9:07 AM on June 2, 2011

Looks great, but be advised that PDF download requires registration with a valid email address, so presumably there's an activation link - anybody try this?

For the curious, here's their privacy statement.
posted by Chichibio at 9:18 AM on June 2, 2011

Sorry, I also meant to say thanks to ZenMasterThis! While some digging may be required to find the gold, this looks like an awesome resource, registration be damned.
posted by Chichibio at 9:22 AM on June 2, 2011

Was it supposed to be deeplinking to something on the NAP site?

Yes, this. Sorry.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:22 AM on June 2, 2011

They don't all seem to be free. Or, at the very least, some of the PDFs still have prices. (I haven't managed to get one into the cart to see if the price disappeared.)
posted by hoyland at 9:22 AM on June 2, 2011

Almost all NAP content has been available for free on their website, pretty much upon publication for I think about a decade. They are the publishing branch of the National Academy of Science which you already own, being the We the People that document refers to. This new twist allows a more functional download. Pretty cool, NAP. Barbara Kline Pope, their director, and Michael Jensen are brilliant publishers. But it's worth noting that this is subsidized by the government. I'm very glad it is, but it isn't necessarily applicable to all scholarly publishing.
posted by Toekneesan at 9:31 AM on June 2, 2011

Sweet! Any Harry Potter?
posted by klangklangston at 10:33 AM on June 2, 2011

Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects is quite cool.
posted by scruss at 5:31 PM on June 2, 2011

Now if we can just do something about those European presses that routinely change $100+ for a scholarly monograph.
posted by Yakuman at 5:37 PM on June 2, 2011

I am writing my dissertation this summer *fist pump*
posted by Put the kettle on at 2:17 PM on June 3, 2011