The Electronic Publications Initiative of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

The Oriental Institute has published a short statement about its Electronic Publications Initiative. They report that

Statistics on downloads of electronic files and sales of printed books are tracked, and sales of the printed volumes have not decreased! Indeed, after the complimentary distribution of twenty-one titles in 2008 that had for many years only been available in print, sales of these titles increased by 7% compared with the previous two years.

This strikes me as very significant indeed! If open access can now demonstrated to increase the sales of back list titles, one of the primary arguments against providing open access for back-list titles evaporates. In fact it seem to indicated that open access, if thought of as promotional, might actually increase a publisher's revenue stream. It would be nice to see the documentation for this OI data presented in detail. It will also be interesting to see how this pattern develops over time.

Oriental Institute Research Archives Catalogue Online

The online catalogue of the Oriental Institute Research Archives contains entries for materials catalogued in the library since 1987, and complete analytics (essays, articles and book reviews) for materials catalogued since 1990. The catalogue also includes earlier materials, and retrospective cataloguing of the entire collection will ultimately make all Research Archives materials accessible. At present, the Research Archives on-line catalogue contains well over two hundred thousand entries, searchable through a library database program.



It is an excellent source of bibliographical data for ancient Near Eastern studies

Open access to Oriental Institute Publications

Being an enightened institution, the Oriental Institute allows public access to basic statistics on access to its website. Over the winter break I played a little with the numbers for 2008, and posted a note on them over at The Oriental Institute: Fragments for a History of an Institution.

I'm reproducing part of that posing here. This section lists the twenty-five most frequently downloaded digital versions (pdf) of formal publications of the Oriental Institute for 2008. Note that some of these are fairly recent, but others are old standards.

1. Oriental Institute 2002-2003 Annual Report, downloaded 4853 times.
   


2. OIS 4. Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond, Nicole Brisch, ed., downloaded 3152 times.
   


3. OIS 3.Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean, Nicola Laneri, editor, with contributions by Nicola Laneri, Ellen F. Morris, Glenn M. Schwartz, Robert Chapman, Massimo Cultraro, Meredith S. Chesson, Alessandro Naso, Adam T. Smith, Dina Katz, Seth Richardson, Susan Pollock, Ian Rutherford, John Pollini, John Robb, and James A. Brown, downloaded 2924 times.
   


4. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), Volume 14, R, 1999, downloaded 2806 times.


5. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), Volume 12, P, 2005, downloaded 2781 times.


6. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), Volume 1, A, part 1, 1964, downloaded 2679 times.


7. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), Volume 18, T, 2006, downloaded 2613 times.


8. SAOC 62. Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Held at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, July 18–22, 2005, Robert D. Biggs, Jennie Myers, and Martha T. Roth, eds., downloaded 2416 times.
   


9. OIS 2, Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures, Seth L. Sanders, editor, with contributions by Seth L. Sanders, John Kelly, Gonzalo Rubio, Jacco Dieleman, Jerrold Cooper, Christopher Woods, Annick Payne, William Schniedewind, Michael Silverstein-, Piotr Michalowski, Paul-Alain Beaulieu, Theo van den Hout, Paul Zimansky, Sheldon Pollock, and Peter Machinist. (second printing), downloaded 2198 times.
   


10. SAOC 61. Sacred Space and Sacred Function in Ancient Thebes, Peter F. Dorman and Betsy M. Bryan, editors, downloaded 2192 times.
    


11. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), Volume 19, T [Tet], 2006, downloaded 2163 times.


12. MAD 2. Old Akkadian Writing and Grammar, I. J. Gelb, 1952, downloaded 1993 times.
    


13. AS 27. Studies Presented to Robert D. Biggs, June 4, 2004 From the Workshop of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, Volume 2, Martha T. Roth, Walter Farber, Matthew W. Stolper and Paula von Bechtolsheim, eds., 2007, downloaded 1886 times.
    


14. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), Volume 10, M, part 1, 1977, downloaded 1621 times.


15. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), Volume 1, A, part 2, 1968, downloaded 1504 times.


16. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), Volume 10, M, part 2, 1977, downloaded 1495 times.


17. OIMP 28. Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past, edited by Geoff Emberling and Katharyn Hanson, 2008, downloaded 1495 times.
    


18. OIS 2, Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures, Seth L. Sanders, editor, with contributions by Seth L. Sanders, John Kelly, Gonzalo Rubio, Jacco Dieleman, Jerrold Cooper, Christopher Woods, Annick Payne, William Schniedewind, Michael Silverstein-, Piotr Michalowski, Paul-Alain Beaulieu, Theo van den Hout, Paul Zimansky, Sheldon Pollock, and Peter Machinist. (first printing), downloaded 1491 times.
    


19. The Hittite Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CHD), P, fascicle 3 (pattar to putkiya-), 1997, downloaded 1481 times,


20. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), Volume 11, N, part 1, 1980, downloaded 1370 times.


21. The Demotic Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Janet H. Johnson, editor: Prologue, downloaded 1362 times.
    


22. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), Volume 9, L, 1973, downloaded 1306 times.


23. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), Volume 2, B, 1965, downloaded 1306 times.


24. OIP 132. The Egyptian Coffin Texts, Volume 8. Middle Kingdom Copies of Pyramid Texts, James P. Allen, 2006, downloaded 1296 times.
    


25. OIMP 25. Embroidering Identities: A Century of Palestinian Clothing.
    By Iman Saca in collaboration with Maha Saca, 2006, downloaded 1255 times.
    

OIS 2 in its two printings is the 9th and 18th most popular digital publication of the OI during 2008 - collectively it would be No. 2, downloaded 3689 times.