On June 2, 2011, the National Academies Press (NAP) announced that nearly all of their publications would become freely available on their web site. Over 4000 titles from NAP have been digitized and are available as HTML full-text or PDF full-text. (You must register with the site to download the PDF files, but registration is free and painless.)

The National Academies Press publishes reports issued by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council. More than 200 books are published by NAP each year on a wide variety of topics ranging from Space and Aeronautics to Math, Chemistry & Physics to Education to Computers and Information Technology to Conflict and Security Issues and many, many topics in-between!

A group of approximately 25 librarians from Kazakhstan, Canada, and the United States have joined together (virtually) to catalog the entire NAP digital collection. So far, just over a thousand titles have been cataloged. These cataloging records will be loaded into our catalog here at St. Mary's as they become available, so check the catalog frequently and if you can't find something, try searching the NAP web site. Of course, you're always welcome to contact a librarian for further assistance!

Some of the reports that have just been added to the catalog are Marine Protected Areas: Tools for Sustaining Ocean Ecosystems, Improving Mathematics Education: Resources for Decision Making, Immunization Safety Review: Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, and A Modified Baseline Incineration Process for Mustard Projectiles at Pueblo Chemical Depot.