Effective June 2nd, PDFs of reports that are currently for sale on the National Academies Press (NAP) Website and PDFs associated with future reports* will be offered free of charge to all Web visitors.

According to the site:

NAP produces more than 200 books a year on a wide range of topics in science, engineering, and health, capturing the best-informed views on important issues.

We invite you to visit the NAP homepage and experience the new opportunities available to access our publications. There you can sign up for MyNAP, a new way for us to deliver all of our content for free to loyal subscribers like you and to reward you with exclusive offers and discounts on our printed books. This enhancement to our free downloads means that we can reach out even further to inform government decision making and public policy, increase public education and understanding, and promote the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge.

*There are a small number of reports that never had PDF files and, therefore, those reports are not available for download. In addition, part of the series, “Nutrient Requirements of Domestic Animals” are not be available in PDF and future titles in this series will also not have PDFs associated with them.

There has been a real lack of academic books available for eReaders (free or paid), so this is great news for readers searching for academic materials in an ebook format.