The University of Michigan Press EBook Collection Launches on Fulcrum

The University of Michigan Press Ebook Collection is now live on Fulcrum! The UMP EBC is a collection of scholarly ebooks published by the University of Michigan Press that is available for sale to libraries via LYRASIS, a non-profit organization that acts as an agent for its 1,200 members to buy content collections and technology solutions.

The collection currently has 1,000 titles, and will include at least 80 new books every year as well as a growing backlist (View or download a spreadsheet of the current title list). As of January 2019, 15 university libraries had purchased the collection.

This collection is unique in that it is library- and user-friendly, adhering to the Charlotte Initiative principles that require ebook collections to provide: irrevocable perpetual access and archival rights; allowance for unlimited simultaneous users; and freedom from any Digital Rights Management (DRM) including (but not limited to) use of proprietary formats, restricted access to content, or time-limited access terms. It offers the best possible version of UMP titles, which will increasingly take advantage of the digital enhancements that Fulcrum supports.

With this collection comes a few new features for platform, including:

The Scholarly Share Link is available in the e-reader to authorized users to share ebook titles for 48 hours.

A screenshot of the scholarly sharing link button

Once selected, the user is provided with a screen with the URL that can be shared:

A screenshot of a generated scholarly sharing link displayed in a modal menu

The temporarily authorized user can then access the EPUB using this link (Note: the e-reader a temporarily authorized viewer sees will not include the Share Link nor the download button, as temporarily authorized users cannot download the EPUB or PDF files).

PDF Downloads for EBC titles

As part of the UMP EBC, PDFs are available to be downloaded from the e-reader.

A screenshot of the download button


A screenshot of the file download options displayed in a modal menu

Improved COUNTER 5 Reporting

Fulcrum has implemented the COUNTER Code of Practice Release 5. Reports are available to view and download at Fulcrum, and you can read documentation to learn more about COUNTER 5.

A screenshot of the COUNTER 5 report dashboard

You can see sample open access titles at fulcrum.org/michigan. For more information about the UMP EBC and how to purchase the collection, please visit press.umich.edu/librarians. With questions concerning the collection, please email Lanell White, Director of Sales and Marketing, at lejames@umich.edu. For questions about the Fulcrum platform, please email Emma DiPasquale at ejdip@umich.edu.