eBooks on Demand (EOD) is a service that has arisen through international cooperation between European libraries. The aim is to provide the widest possible spectrum of users with easy access to books that are no longer under copyright protection – i.e. books published up to the year 1900 (or 1910).
Four libraries in the Czech Republic have joined this international project: the National Library of Technology, the Moravian Library, the Research Library in Olomouc, and the Library of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The Library of the Theatre Institute has entered a contract with the National Library of Technology that allows it to use the EOD service for materials in its own collection.
It is possible to order electronic versions of materials in the collections of the Theatre Institute’s Library published between 1500 and 1900. The price to create an ebook is 4 CZK per digitised page and a 200 CZK handling fee for the entire order. Most materials can be digitised in 2 weeks (the customer is notified if a longer period of time is required to digitise the title) and the customer is sent a link (valid for 60 days) to an online site where the ebook can be downloaded (as a pdf).
This service is not limited to the Czech Republic and can be used by researchers and anyone else around the world interested in early titles on the theatre in the library’s collections.
The EOD project is a way of quickly obtaining materials in electronic format, but it also allows people who use the service to directly determine which materials in the collection are digitised. Materials digitised through this service will be deposited in this format in Kramerius, the Theatre Institute’s digital library system.
More information on this service is available on the website of the National Library of Technology.