Edward Elgar Publishing Announces Access to Knowledge Initiative in Collaboration With EIFL

CHELTENHAM, England, July 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

Edward Elgar Publishing is delighted to announce a partnership with Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL), a not-for-profit organisation that works with libraries worldwide to enable access to digital information for people in developing and transition countries.

As part of the collaboration Edward Elgar Publishing has agreed to provide institutions in 41 countries with free access to its journals and development studies ebooks via the Edward Elgar Publishing http://www.elgaronline.com content platform.

The agreement initially runs until 31st December 2016 and is open to EIFL partner-consortia and their member libraries in 41 countries including Albania, Algeria, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Georgia, Ghana, Kenya, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lesotho, Macedonia, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nigeria, Palestine, Senegal, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Tim Williams, Edward Elgar Publishing Managing Director said:

"We are delighted to be working with EIFL. As an international academic publisher, ensuring global dissemination and discovery is part of the service we offer to our authors. We are always looking for innovative ways to reach new readers and so this was a natural collaboration that we hope to extend in the future."

Romy Beard, EIFL-Licensing Programme Manager said:

"Currently we have negotiated free access to twelve e-resources from nine different publishers, for some or all our member countries. Apart from one, these e-resources are journal collections or databases. We're pleased to see Edward Elgar allow us to extend our offering to ebooks. The response so far has been very positive, with access requests coming from Nepal, Azerbaijan, Fiji, Cambodia and Nigeria."

Edward Elgar Publishing is also supporting an important new EIFL initiative in Myanmar. Funded by the Open Society Foundation's Higher Education Support Program, the EIFL eLibrary Myanmar project is transforming access to information in Myanmar, initially at Yangon University and Mandalay University. As part of the project Edward Elgar Publishing will provide the institutions with free access to law and development studies ebooks from 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010.

Susanna Lob, Manager of the EIFL eLibrary Myanmar project, said:

"This is a pivotal moment in the history of Myanmar and we are grateful to Edward Elgar Publishing for making their law ebooks and journals available as part of the EIFL eLibrary Myanmar project. The Elgar Research Handbooks will be a particularly valuable resource alongside academic monographs and journal titles such as the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment. It is also good news that Edward Elgar Publishing's platform, Elgaronline, is already integrated with the discovery tools that are now available at Yangon University and Mandalay University ."

See http://www.eifl.net/elibrarymyanmar for further details about the EIFL eLibrary Myanmar project, and read a BBC news story at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26823187.

Notes to Editors 

About Edward Elgar Publishing 

Founded in 1986, Edward Elgar Publishing is a leading international academic publisher in economics, business and management, law and the social sciences. The company won the IPG Frankfurt Book Fair Academic & Professional Publisher of the Year Award in 2014 and The Bookseller Independent, Academic, Educational and Professional Publisher of the Year award in 2014 and 2013. Edward Elgar Publishing is an independent family business.

Links

Edward Elgar Publishing main website

Elgaronline.com is the online content platform for Edward Elgar Publishing

You can learn more about the impact our authors are making on the Edward Elgar Publishing blog    

About EIFL 

EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) works with libraries to enable access to digital information in developing and transition countries. They are an international not-for-profit organisation based in Europe with a global network of partners.

Founded in 1999, EIFL began by advocating for affordable access to commercial e-journals for academic and research libraries in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, EIFL partners with libraries and library consortia in more than 60 developing and transition countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Their work has also expanded to include other programmes designed to enable access to knowledge for education, learning, research and sustainable community development.

Contact:
Tim Williams, Managing Director:
+44-(0)1242-226934
tim@e-elgar.co.uk