University of of Hawai’i Press Releases 90 Classic Books as Open-Access Titles

From the U. of Hawai’i:

University of Hawaiʻi Press announced Hawaiʻi Open Books, a collection of 90 newly digitized and freely available academic titles from UH Press’s backlist, many of which have been out of print or unavailable for years.

Titles include seminal works of scholarship in Hawaiian, Pacific, and Asian studies, as well as grammars, dictionaries, and other resources for languages from throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The works are accessible from various online platforms, including UH’s institutional repository ScholarSpace, a newly created Hawai‘i Open Books website, JSTOR, and Project MUSE.

Hawai‘i Open Books is the culmination of over two years of work funded by two generous grants totaling $190,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Humanities Open Book program.

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To revive the ninety books, UH Press’s digital-publishing team worked closely with faculty and library staff to identify the books best suited for republication. The team subsequently contacted authors, editors, and others to clear rights, collaborated with the university library on scanning, and liaised with ebook converters to create digital reproductions of the original print copies. Among the titles revived are:

• Over thirty grammars, dictionaries, and other language resources for Fijian, Tagalog, Carolinian, Cebuano, Marshallese, Bikol, and other languages of the Asia-Pacific region.
• Ancient Tahitian Society by Douglas L. Oliver: A three-volume ethnography of Tahiti, foundational to the anthropological study of Polynesia.
• China’s Old Dwellings by Ronald G. Knapp: A heavily illustrated study of domestic architecture from throughout different periods in Chinese history.
• Da Kine Talk: From Pidgin to Standard English in Hawaii by Elizabeth Ball: A detailed exploration of Hawai‘i’s unique relationship to the English language.
• The Path of the Ocean: Traditional Poetry of Polynesia edited by Marjorie Sinclair: The first anthology of poetry from throughout Polynesia presented as literature rather than anthropology.
• Learn More, Read the Complete Announcement

Direct to Access Books via Hawai‘i Open Books

See Also: Johns Hopkins University Press Celebrates Open Access Week by Releasing 100 Out-of-Print Titles Online for Free (October 23, 2019)

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Digital Preservation, Funding, Libraries, News, Open Access, Publishing