Are the ASA-SIAM series books available as e-books? Will e-books be available soon? The questions have been getting more and more frequent. Very shortly, the answer will be “Yes.”

Beginning in January 2011, libraries and institutions around the world will be able to offer approximately 400 SIAM titles, including the ASA-SIAM Series on Statistics and Applied Probability, in e-book format. All titles will be hosted on the AIP/Scitation platform, where they will be offered as PDFs, viewable by chapter. When the program launches, about half of the books will be available, with the expectation that the entire ASA-SIAM series will be included. The remaining SIAM titles will be added to the site later in 2011. All new books published in any SIAM series will be published in electronic format and print.

Institutions will have two e-book options: purchase and subscription. The purchase option ($9,920 for SIAM academic members; $12,400 for nonmember institutions) will grant perpetual access to the complete SIAM collection. An annual subscription in the following years will add access to newly published titles.

Subscriptions ($1,276 per year for SIAM academic members; $1,595 per year for nonmember institutions) will give access to all SIAM e-books for 12 months, with permanent access to titles published during the subscription period.

“Librarians are accustomed to owning books, and, to some extent, this has carried over to the e-book arena,” notes SIAM publisher David Marshall. “Accordingly, we want to be able to offer institutions the option to purchase or subscribe to our e-book collection. Some will want to have perpetual access; others will want to purchase a subscription.”

To get the e-book program started on a money-saving note, all subscribers and purchasers will receive a 20% discount during the first six months of 2011. To buy or subscribe, call +1 (215) 382-9800 or, in the United States and Canada, (800) 447-7426. Also email ebooks@siam.org.

Once the new e-book program for institutions is in place, SIAM will consider how best to publish e-books for individuals across all its books series. Because of competing platforms and formats, the best way to reach individual readers is constantly changing; however, the goal is for you to have your favorite ASA-SIAM titles right at your fingertips, with no paper involved.