Queen’s University is among the early adopters of a new ebook collection that will see books from Canada’s university presses made available online.

The new collection of ebooks has been made possible by a partnership agreement between the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) and eBOUND Canada, in conjunction with the Association of Canadian University Presses (ACUP).

The partnership aims to promote the availability of Canadian scholarship in ebook format, and will see over 3,000 ebooks made available through OCUL’s Scholars Portal. These books, published by Canada’s 12 university presses between 2007 and 2012, will for the first time be available in one digital collection.

Jane Philipps, Coordinator of Collection Development at the Queen’s Library, says that Queen’s is one of ten early-adopting Ontario universities participating in this partnership. “Since the vast majority of these ebooks are not currently owned by Queen’s, this agreement will give our users much greater access to recent Canadian scholarship.”

In addition to the catalogue of ebooks published since 2007, the partnership agreement includes a licensing provision that will see future ebooks added as they are published. The total catalogue is expected to grow to 4,000 titles by next year.

McGill-Queen’s University Press (MQUP), a leading publisher of scholarly work on Canada and Canadian perspectives, is one of the presses participating in the program. With this agreement all of the over 3,800 books that MQUP has published since 1960 will be available in digital format at the Queen’s library.

“MQUP is proud to be a partner in this innovative program,” says Philip Cercone, Executive Director at MQUP and an early proponent of this partnership among OCUL, eBOUND, and ACUP. “The agreement ensures that Ontario’s university libraries will have access to the wealth of scholarship that is published each year by Canada’s university presses.”

With ten Ontario universities initially subscribing to this program, over 290,000 students and faculty at the province’s universities, including Queen’s, will have access to this new catalogue of Canadian scholarship.