Free to download PDF books available…

All PDF versions of books published by the National Academies Press are now downloadable to anyone free of charge. This includes a current catalogue of more than 4,000 books plus future reports produced by the Press. The mission of the National Academies Press (NAP) – publisher for the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council — is to disseminate the institutions’ content as widely as possible while maintaining financial sustainability. To that end, NAP began offering free content online in 1994. Before this announcement, all PDFs were free to download in developing countries, and 65 percent of them were available for free to any user anywhere.

Based on the performance of NAP’s current free PDFs, projections suggest that this change will enhance dissemination of PDF reports from about 7,00,000 downloads per year to more than 3 million by 2013.

Printed books will continue to be available for purchase through the NAP website and traditional channels. The free PDFs are available exclusively from the NAP’s website www.nap.edu and remain subject to copyright laws.