Springer Science+Business Media Completes Digitization of Entire Backlist Collection, Offering Over 182,000 eBooks on SpringerLink
Update: The digitization of the old book collection is now complete, and SpringerLink currently offers (as of September 2015) 182,372 eBooks. Additionally, the publisher provides millions of articles from scientific journals.
Original message: For established publishers, the transition to eBooks, despite the relatively straightforward conversion of an existing book to a digital format, is not a trivial matter. Especially the division of the book collection presents an unsightly logistical challenge for providers. Moreover, customers interested in eBooks need to check if a digital version is available in addition to the regular print format, which can be quite time-consuming given the many different eBook stores.
For customers of the Springer Science+Business Media publisher, however, this should no longer be a problem in the future, as announced in a press release. The entire book collection will be digitized retroactively from 1842 (!) onwards. This is the year when the publisher was founded—in other words, all previous publications will be converted. Approximately 70 percent of the archives are in English, 30 percent in German, and there are also a few Dutch titles.
Springer Science+Business Media is a scientific publisher particularly known for specialist publications in the German-speaking area. In 2010, they achieved a revenue of around 866 million euros, with about 2,000 journals and approximately 7,000 new books.
Extensive scientific offering
By the year 2012, they aim to complete the digitization of the book collection. According to current internal estimates, the project encompasses about 65,000 titles, including scientific works by many renowned figures, such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Sir John Eccles, Lise Meitner, Werner Siemens, or Rudolf Diesel.
The implementation is not a simple task, as Springer must actively contact the authors to seek their consent and negotiate the royalty amounts for the digitization of books. With a total of 65,000 titles, one can imagine that this is an undertaking of enormous scale, and the bureaucratic effort alone must be immense. However, it is important to note that not all works are under copyright anymore, as in Germany, copyright expires 70 years after the death of an author or other involved individuals.
Just like the existing eBook collection, the newly digitized books of the publisher will be available on SpringerLink, their proprietary platform. While access is needed for many books and articles, a portion of the content is publicly accessible, and reading samples of most eBooks are also available. Starting in 2012, around 110,000 eBooks should be findable on SpringerLink.
This step once again impressively demonstrates how important the eBook market will be in the future.
