Karolinum Press has become the first Czech publisher to link up with ebrary, the global distributor of specialist monographs in electronic form. Starting in April 2014, it will disseminate e-books via university libraries. A total of sixty-seven e-books published by Karolinum Press are currently available through ebrary. The list of available books includes fifty-seven titles in Czech, nine in English and one in German (list of available titles). The list includes, for example, bestsellers by František Koukolík (Já. O mozku, vědomí a sebeuvědomování (‘I. On the brain, awareness and self-awareness’); Před úsvitem, po ránu. Eseje o dětech a rodičích (‘Before dawn, after morning. Essays on children and parents’)) and the latest titles, including Hudební psychologie pro učitele (‘Musical psychology for teachers’) and titles addressing current social issues, such as Bezdomovectví jako alternativní existence mladých lidí (‘Homelessness as an alternative means of existence for young people’).

By the end of 2014 Karolinum Press plans to make over 200 titles available as e-books and support their distribution in other libraries in both the Czech Republic and abroad.

Members of the CU academic community can access individual titles at the Charles University E-resources Portal.

How to read e-books in CU libraries

• off-line – books can be borrowed and downloaded bit-by-bit in PDF format,

• e-books can be downloaded to any end device that supports Adobe Digital Editions,

• individual titles can be borrowed for periods of up to fourteen days,

• up to ten e-books can be borrowed at once by any one user,

• books do not need to be returned after expiry of the loan period, but ‘return themselves’,

• available on-line from CU IP addresses or via remote access (CAS),

• multiple licences mean that several ‘specimens’ are available for borrowing,

• downloaded books can be copied from a computer to up to five mobile devices,

Ebrary is a leading global distributor of electronic books and currently offers more than 500,000 specialist titles in e-book form. The majority of titles offered are in English and come from renowned publishers (e.g. Cambridge University Press, Elsevier, Wiley, Oxford University Press, Sage, Springer, Taylor and Francis and so on).

About Karolinum Press

Karolinum Press was founded in 1990 and has so far published around 5,500 titles. Karolinum Press focuses primarily on teaching texts and scientific monographs, as well as publishing twenty-seven specialist journals and almanacs in all fields represented at Charles University. Separate editorial projects include representative publications on the history of Charles University, monographs on the history of art, language textbooks and the Limes interdisciplinary editions, which publish translations of works focusing on literary science and cultural history. Another major project is the publishing of Czech fiction and its translation into world languages, as well as the publication of the works of Karel Šiktanec.