Books

A unique collaboration has resulted in the re-issue of over 1,000 rare books of enduring scholarly value.

Rare and out-of-print books held by the University Library are being made accessible in new ways thanks to a collaboration with Cambridge University Press (CUP), who are scanning the books for publication as paperbacks and ebooks.

The Cambridge Library Collection has recently topped 1,000 titles and ranges from anthropology to zoology. It includes scientific writings by Charles Darwin, William Whewell and John Herschel, works by great mathematicians including Augustin-Louis Cauchy and Leonard Euler, and Charles Babbage’s innovative book On the Economy of Machines and Manufacture. Other highlights are the complete edition of the works of John Ruskin by Edward Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, treatises and polemics on education by Denys Winstanley, John Stuart Blackie and Adam Sedgwick, and four classic editions of Shakespeare.

‘Books are selected on the advice of academic consultants as being of continuing relevance to their subject, either as source material or as landmark publications,’ explained Kate Brett, Publisher, Digital Business Development, at CUP. Over the course of 2010, the Collection will extend its range to cover many more areas, including classics and astronomy.

Dr Jill Whitelock, Head of Special Collections at the University Library, said: ‘We are delighted to be collaborating with Cambridge University Press on this exciting project and look forward to working with our academic colleagues to make more critical titles available.’

For more information and to watch a YouTube video of the process, please visit www.cambridge.org/clc/


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