@ the Library: Knowledge Unlatched (Open Access e-books) - 12,763 downloads in 6 months

"A full report on the Knowledge Unlatched pilot project has recently been published in the Cultural Science Journal.   This report - Knowledge Unlatched: A Global Library Consortium Model for Funding Open Access Scholarly Books' - details the genesis and development of the pilot, as well as providing data on use of the Pilot Collection during its first six months online. Knowledge Unlatched is a collaborative, crowd-funded, model pilot which aims to enable Open Access for scholarly books in the arts and humanities.  Many libraries around the world share a single Title Fee payment to publishers (the cost of publishing a book), in return for a book being made available ('unlatched') via Open Access e-book platforms, such as OAPEN and HathiTrust. Over 300 international libraries have now signed up.  The Library signed up as an early participant.   28 new Humanities and Social Sciences books from important scholarly publishers are included in the pilot, and are listed in SAULCAT. Over the six months, there were 12,763 downloads from 138 countries - demonstrating the global demand for creative new approaches to supporting Open Access for scholarly e-books ..."