One of the growing traditions at the AMS Annual Meeting has been the cake cutting celebration of new books published by the Society. This year’s meeting was no exception—the ceremony touted a particularly yummy year of reading provided by AMS Books sweetened by a brand-new venture into electronic reading.
Indeed, the icing on the cake—literally—was the enhancement of the program’s eBook distribution. Written into the frosting was the impending collaboration between Springer and AMS to enable electronic distribution of dozens of books and monographs.
If you weren’t fortunate enough to get a slice back in January, hunger no longer: today, you can have your cake and eat it, too, because the Springer-AMS website is now officially open.
Springer’s Senior Publishing Editor in Earth Science and Geography, Robert Doe, says, “The AMS book program is internationally renowned, and many of their titles are classed as seminal. I am delighted that these quality books will now be available electronically for the very first time.”
The 12 titles available as eBooks immediately will grow to approximately 50 in 2013, and 3 to 5 of AMS’s selection of new releases will be added each year. The current collection includes key works on climate change and meteorological hazards including Lewis and Clark: Weather and Climate Data from the Expedition Journals and Deadly Season: Analysis of the 2011 Tornado Outbreaks aswell as instructional texts like Eloquent Science: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Better Writer, Speaker, and Atmospheric Scientist. Over time, the eBooks list will be expanded with out-of-print legacy titles that will also be available through print-on-demand.
The collaboration with the world’s largest collection of science, technology, and mathematics eBooks–enables AMS to benefit from Springer’s innovative ePublishing technologies, long-term library relationships, and reach into global institutional markets. According to AMS Executive Director Keith Seitter, “The American Meteorological Society is committed to achieving the broadest possible dissemination of the important science published in our books. This agreement with Springer opens new avenues for that dissemination and therefore represents an important means to achieve our goals.”
“Our arrangement enhances both discoverability and access to our content, but puts Springer in the driver’s seat in terms of remaining on top of technology—file formats and devices that tend to change as often as each year,” says AMS Books Managing Editor Sarah Jane Shangraw.
For individuals, AMS eBooks will be available for purchase not only from Springer but also eBooks.com, Google Books, and other eBook retailers in files downloadable to any device. People at institutions that subscribe to SpringerLink will be able to view web-based books using their institutional login. The SpringerLink “Springer Book Archive” will make available books published prior to 2005.
AMS will continue to distribute print books directly and through its print distribution partner, the University of Chicago Press.
