ACLS Humanities E-Book collection

The Folger has an annual subscription to the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Humanities E-Book collection, which makes over 5,000 scholarly titles in the humanities available to onsite researchers. You can search and browse the collection (including full-text searching) through the ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) interface by connecting to the Folger's wifi network or using an onsite Folger computer. Records for all books, with persistent links to the online versions, can also be found in Hamnet. Note that because these e-books are "rented" rather than purchased, the Folger cannot guarantee that a given title will continue to be available. If you find a dead link in Hamnet, please let us know so that the record can be removed.

Fields covered

As of August 2018, fields covered include: "African History, American History, Animal Studies, Archaeology, Art and Architectural History, Asian History, Australasian/Oceanian History, Biblical Studies, Bibliographic Studies, Byzantine History, Canadian History, Caribbean History, Central European History, Comparative/World, Eastern European/Russian History, Economic History, Environmental Studies, European History, Film and Media Studies, Folklore, Hip Hop Studies, Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, Latin American History, Law, LGBT/Queer Studies, Linguistics, Literature, Literary Criticism, Medicine, Methods/Theory, Middle Eastern History, Musicology, Native Peoples of the Americas, Performance Studies (theater, music, dance), Philosophy, Political Science, Religion, Science/Technology, Sociology and Women’s Studies."

MARC records

MARC records for HEB titles are provided en masse, and batch-loaded into Hamnet. This means that many titles fall outside the scope of the Folger's collection development policy, but because they have no effect on shelf space or subscription price, it's not worth the cost in staff time to identify and remove them. Instead, an advisory statement is added to each record at the time of upload.

Annual updates come in two sets: MARC records for titles ACLS has added to the collection (which are uploaded to Hamnet), and a spreadsheet of titles ACLS has removed from the collection. Hamnet records for titles removed from the ACLS Humanities E-Book collection are deleted from Hamnet, and archived on the server.

Folger edits to MARC records

The following changes are made to the vendor-provided MARC records:

1. change 008/23 (form of item) from "s - electronic" to the more specific "o - online"
2. delete 006 (it's too generic to be useful)
3. add RDA 33X fields:
   1. 336__ $a text $b txt $2 rdacontent
   2. 337__ $a computer $b c $2 rdamedia
   3. 338__ $a online resource $b cr $2 rdacarrier
4. Add 500 HBCN "This record was provided by a vendor. It may contain incorrect or incomplete information. $5 DFo"
5. replace 856$z "Electronic access restricted; authentication may be required:" with "ACLS digital reproduction (Access limited by licensing agreements)"
6. Use "For access, follow the Linked Resources hyperlink" as the call number