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NCBI Minute: On the NCBI Bookshelf, Textbooks for Free!

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Hello, everybody. This is Peter Cooper from the NCBI. Today’s Minute will be on the NCBI Bookshelf:
Textbooks for Free!. During the webinar if you have a question,
please type it in the questions pod. I will try to answer the questions. I am not going to be presenting, Rana Morris
will be presenting. At the end we will be able to address some
of them orally and Stacy Lathrop is here from Bookshelf to help answer them. If there are questions we don’t get to, in
fact all questions, will be put into a document linked to our webinars and courses page. Slides, supplementals and Q&A documents will
be on the FTP site. I will turn it over to Rana Morris. Morris. Thanks for joining us today. Today will talk about textbook that are available
on the NCBI bookshelf, how they get there, and maybe how you can have your textbook on
the bookshelf as well. Since 1999 NCBI has worked with publishers
and authors to provide an additional way for readers to access their products. The NCBI Bookshelf also called Books for short
houses books reports documents and other literature-based media on life sciences and health related
topics. The specific topics or scope was selected
by our parent organization, the U.S. National Library of Medicine. The Bookshelf collects and makes available
only fulltext works not abstracts. And they are all in English. One of the things that NCBI is known for are
links provided between related pieces of information within and between resources throughout NCBI. We do this to provide a way for users of our
site to learn and discover more about their topics of interest since many of our databases
involve biological data, it was natural to provide links between our databases and to
biological and health-related textbooks and other books on the Bookshelf. These are a large number of databases that
we have in various domain fields. We’ve long been known for our literature databases,
particularly PubMed and PubMed central or PMC. We’ve also maintained biological sequence
databases for nucleotides and protein since 1990 and have added other sequence related
databases as well as those housing data related to genes, protein structure and activity,
and chemicals. And more recently, have added several health
and clinically focused databases to our suite of resources as the years in scientific research
has progressed we are adding more and more. The NCBI Bookshelf or Books database is another
literature database that can connect to all the resources. The link to a lot of the basis science information
is perhaps one reason why textbooks have been so successfully added to the NCBI system. So why textbooks? In fact the NCBI Bookshelf started in 1999
with a single book. In addition of one of the most respected molecular
biology books. The third edition of molecular biology of
the cell. By Alberts, Johnson, Lewis, Raff, Roberts
and Walter. The text was submitted to us for inclusion
in the NCBI Bookshelf by Garland publishing with the blessing of the authors. Recently we caught up with Bruce Alberts who
relayed to us that all of the authors of the molecular biology of the cell were pleased
when Garland publishing decided to post the third edition of our textbook on Bookshelf. And we were especially happy that this free
resource has been heavily used, contributing an important U.S. effort to spread science
to students across the globe. In addition to molecular biology of the cell,
several all other extremely popular textbooks were added early on, including Berb, Tymoczko
and Stryer’s biochemistry. Barons Medical Microbiology, and Walker, Hall,
and Hurst clinical methods. These are considered classic text books which
continued to be well-regarded and are still used today. A quote from one frequent user of these books,
a professor teaching graduate and professional life science and clinical courses, mentioned
that I grew up with Stryer’s Biochemistry and Alberts molecular biology of the cell. All you need to add is Lewin’s Genes and I’d
never leave my computer. But seriously I’ve recommended the NCBI Bookshelf
to my students, included links to the textbooks in syllabi, and incorporated graphics and
tables with attribution in lectures for over 12 years now. Having access to free, high quality textbooks
is key to being able to meet the needs of my graduate, medical and PA students. The online version of these texts include
all features of the hard copy books. Including graphics, images and tables. Which are some of the most heavily viewed
sections of these books. But some say these are old. Are they still useful or at least are being
used? In fact, they are. In January 2018, hundreds of thousands of
people were accessing and spending time looking through and reading these text books. These four are the current most popular and
used entries on the NCBI Bookshelf. Okay, so faculty who have grown up with these
classic texts may feel comfortable with them. But what about students newly exposed to these
disciplines in their undergraduate studies? Why are they still accessing these classic
text. Here’s a quote from an undergraduate biochemistry
major that is representative of what we heard from students. Shawn says I can’t afford to spend $350-$400
for a single textbook. Even if I could, carrying around is a pain
in the neck, literally. Being able to look things up on my laptop
or cell phone or anywhere my study group happens to be is the only way of got through my biology
courses. And unlike what is on most of the web, I know
I can trust what I find at the U.S. National Library of Medicine. The cost factor as well as the platform for
textbooks are both important factors in student usage of textbooks. In a blog post on the Wiley network by the
library director of the Western Michigan University school of medicine she explored students preferences
and concluded that overall, we know learners sometimes prefer print, and other times they
prefer the electronic version but generally, surveys on the subject seem to be in agreement
that having access to both an electronic and print textbook copy is optimal. At the NCBI Bookshelf we have had some new
textbooks added to our inventory in recent years. And in fact one of them, the essentials of
glycobiology, was unique in that it was conceived from the outset by its editors, publisher
and NCBI as a book that would be published simultaneously in print by Coldspring Harvard
press and also made available in fulltext online at NCBI Bookshelf. The editors and publisher hope that this would
serve as a worldwide model for an open education vision. They recently provided a quote to us. We are happy to have collaborated with NCBI
staff whose skills and efficiency ensured our book would be discoverable and freely
accessible to researchers, instructors, students, and others after simultaneous release in print
and fulltext online, with online-only updates available on the NCBI Bookshelf. We were very happy to work with Ajit Varki
and John Inglis on this project. But why would other publishers want to consider
this type of model? Why would publishers be interested in making
textbooks freely available for the customers? In a white paper published by Springer Nature
in November 2017 called the OA effect, how does open access affect the usage of scholarly
books. They revealed that open access, which go even
further than free online textbooks, Iare downloaded seven times more than any others
in the first year of publication. Are cited 50% more over four years. And are mentioned online 10 times more over
three years. Essentially, there is a significant amount
of free advertisement and marketing that organically grows by making books freely available on
the Internet. This dramatically increases the potential
in realized audience for these books. In a blog post exploring the data in this
white paper, books and the OA effect, one publishers perspective, they mentioned that
in addition to free advertising and expanded audience which benefited the publisher, two
other groups seem to strongly support this movement for free online open access book
availability. Funders or sponsors were motivated by specific
ethical considerations that publicly funded research should be open for the public to
read. They were also interested in fulfilling their
and their authors expectations for finding mechanisms to reach a larger audience. Authors motivations included improving access
to research information, enhancing dissemination to a wider, broader audience, and also providing
a way for students to be impacted by their work at low cost. The links to both the white paper and the
blog are up there on the slide. At NCBI we can help you do all of this. https://oaspa.org/books-oa-effect-one-publishers-perspective/
https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-research/journals-books/books/the-oa-effect What the NCBI Bookshelf can do for you. So here is what we hope to do. Make your textbook findable and usable for
anyone, anywhere, it’s on the Internet. Optimize indexing of your book in Google and
in PubMed to make it easy to find. Enable viewing in any web browser by scrolling
Webpage styles and we also have an e-book style PubReader which makes the book easier
to read. We also hope to expand your audience to more
than just college classes who have already adopted your textbook. Because they can access it as well. Here is the view of Catherine Jenkins who
is the open access book workflows coordinator at the publisher Springer Nature has submitted
many books available on the NCBI Bookshelf. The NCBI Bookshelf offers an additional route
for wider discoverability for our open access books and Wellcome-funded OA chapters and
helps to direct traffic through these to the text hosted on our own platform SpringerLink. The HTML display on the device agnostic platform
is user-friendly and renders our books and easily navigable sections to create a best
in class online reading experience. We value our collaboration. So to summarize, NCBI Bookshelf can increase
discoverability of your text and provide a link to help readers find your own site and
resources. And we are a good collaborative partner who
is able to present your work online for a great reader experience. Are you interested? What do you need to know about getting your
book on the NCBI Bookshelf? Please keep in mind the scope of the works
as specified by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. We take books about life sciences and health
related topics and they must be in English and need to be in fulltext, not just abstracts
or citation. Who can apply to have their book included
in the NCBI Bookshelf? The application to include the book must be
driven by the copyright holder of the text. However, that copyright holder needs to make
sure that all participating members of the team agree on this submission including authors,
editors, publishers, funders and sponsors. So to begin the application process you can
download an application from the NCBI website. There’s also, for new submitters, a publishers
application to fill out. Once those are filled out, you can submit
it to the Bookshelf via email which I will provide shortly. It is important also to provide details of
the work including the title and an abstract for the book as well as bios for the editors
and authors. And a copy of the book for review. For printed books, there should either be
two hard copies or in an electronic PDF version of the book. For e-books you can send either the electronic
files or the URL for accessing these files. Actually if you just go to the Bookshelf homepage. You can find links to helpful information
includig a whole section for people who want to have their books on the bookshelf. Including a whole set of documents on how
to apply. there is information for people who want to
learn how to use the bookshelf. Including a quick start guide. And FAQs that answer common questions that
people want to know. Can I use figures from the book? How do I cite books from the Bookshelf ? Can
a publisher also provide their work on other sites in addition to the bookshelf? By the way, the answer is yes. So in conclusion we’ve got a couple of direct
URLs for you. The NCBI’s Bookshelf homepage you just saw,
as well as links to other helpful documentation. These are linked directly on the homepage
from the Bookshelf. Here is the direct link for the information
for authors and publishers and how to apply. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/about/publishers/
If you have additional questions or inquiries you can reach the NCBI Bookshelf staff directly
at this email, [email protected] We would like to finish with a place where
you can go to learn more about any of our resources. The NCBI Insights blog. The NCBI YouTube channel. And for any questions , general questions
about NCBI, you can always send it into info at NCBI.NLM.NIH.GOV address. Even for the Bookshelf you can send it there
and we can route it over to the Bookshelf people as well. Thank you for your attention. We now have some time for some questions that
you have written in the chat pod. And the head of the NCBI Bookshelf group,
Stacy Lathrop, is here and she can answer your questions. This is Peter Cooper again. We have one question so far. This is directed to Stacy. Would you be interested in a previous edition
of a text if a new addition has already been published? Thank you for your question. We do accept previous editions. We do prefer the most recent addition. We have some older editions so if it’s not
the newest edition, we will take the next or second to most recent one. Thanks. Here’s a question. How many books are on the NCBI Bookshelf? We now have over 6000 books in Bookshelf. I do not have the exact number but I can provide
that, and I could do a search. So the easiest way to see how many books we
have on Bookshelf would be to go to our browse titles page. I am clicking on it here. Some of our books appear in our archives so
they are not in our default browse or search. This is usually for clinical content because
we do also have a lot of systematic reviews and clinical guidelines where the currency
is important for our agreements we do not make these available by default. So the complete number of titles we have,
6042 titles. And we are pretty much adding between five
and 20 per week. Thanks, Stacy. Here’s another question. Is there an iPad, iPhone app for the Bookshelf? We do not currently have an iPad or iPhone
app. What we do have is what we call a PubReader
version which I can actually show you here. This is actually a report rather than a textbook. But it will show you what we have. If you click on views to pub reader, it’s
an HTML 5 page. You can do a find within the book but you
can’t search across the resource. The view looks different on a PC, it is kind
of device-smart. So if you are on an iPad, it will look pretty
similar to this. And then on the iPhone it doesn’t scroll by
page it will just scroll down the page. It’s a little bit different on the iPhone. Which I can’t show you, unfortunately. Okay. Thanks. This will be the last question. Can students download the e-books? Whether or not students can download the e-books
is dependent on the agreement we have with the publisher. So if the publisher agrees to participate
in our open access subset, which some publishers have, then you can go to our FTP and download
the entire XML files. It’s also whether or not you can download
the PDF version of the book is also dependent on the agreement. Many do provide us to provide the PDFs but
not all of them. It is dependent on agreements with the publisher. So let me show you a book where we have permission
to download the PDF. I’m not going to choose a textbook, let me
do this one. The handbook of eHealth Evaluation. I’m going to move to the PDF. You can download the PDF to read while you
are not connected. And you can also switch to the classic view. I can show you where it is in the classic
view. Again here have the PDF version for download. I can show you where the open access subset
is so that you can look where to find that. So you would go to our open access subset. And then you would go to NLM LitArch FTP service,
there is a number of clicks, I”ll go to Last Modified, there is an Excel file that shows
all of the content that we have. Available for download. These are all the book titles. It shows you the file directory by which you
can download the content. Okay. Thanks, Stacy and everyone for coming. Let’s go ahead and conclude the webinar and
we will see you next time. Thanks for coming.>>[Event concluded]

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