Dear Code4Lib,

In addition to the unglue.it page referenced below, you may find the following resources useful:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/oral-literature-in-africa/oclc/809794394
https://github.com/Gluejar/oral_literature_in_africa
(#sky249994364).

An update on our relaunch after being cut off from Amazon Payments is here:
http://blog.unglue.it/2012/09/13/update-on-unglue-it-relaunch/

It's no secret that we're counting heavily on libraries to flex their distribution muscles, but we're also counting on developers to show the world the value of high quality open source ebooks. 

Happy Friday!

Eric











                          

We are pleased to announce the first free ebook release supported by a successful campaign on the Unglue.it crowdfunding platform, which launched in May 2012.  It may be downloaded from Unglue.it at https://unglue.it/work/81834/ .  Soon you will also be able to download it from your favorite ebook store, and library ebook collections.

Open Book Publishers (Cambridge, UK) has released a revised, digital edition of Ruth Finnegan's classic work of scholarship, Oral Literature in Africa, free for all to read and share under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.

With this license, there no limit on the kind of tablet, ereader or computer on which the book can be read, and – perhaps most importantly – no limit on the number of readers and libraries which can download their own copies at the same time.

For the first time, young Africans who may never have known this collection exists, will be able to read this priceless record of the cultures and languages of their grandparents and great-grandparents.  An African student in Senegal can hear songs in dialects of languages spoken in Kenya fifty years ago; African-American children in South Carolina can read stories told by the descendants of their Gulah speaking ancestors; and a literary scholar in Cambridge, UK can write a dissertation the oral traditions behind Wole Soyinka's Nobel-prize-winning plays and novels.

Based on research done in the 1960s and first published in 1970, Oral Literature in Africa has been out of print and very hard to find for over a decade.

Now, through the contributions of ungluers from around the world, who raised the goal of $7,500, not only the text but also newly released audio recordings and photographs by Professor Finnegan will be easily accessible to students and scholars around the world.

Print copies of Oral Literature in Africa will be sold by Open Book Publishers through book retailers everywhere, including Kobo, Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk – where the free ebook will also be downloadable.  The free ebook is available at libraries and bookstores around the world through Internet Archive (http://archive.org/details/OralLiteratureInAfrica) and on the Open Book Publisher web site (http://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/97/oral-literature-in-africa/).

About Unglue.it:

Unglue.it (http://unglue.it) is a crowdfunding platform which rewards rights holders for making their ebooks available to the world under a Creative Commons license (http://creativecommons.org).  Unglue.it runs campaigns for previously published books, allowing book lovers to pledge toward giving them to the world.  When rights holders’ target prices are reached, they receive funds in exchange for issuing an unglued ebook edition which can be freely read, copied, and shared, noncommercially, worldwide.

Selected press:

Unglue.it: a crafty new way to resurrect lost classics
The Guardian, August 11, 2012

Unglue.it befreit Bücher
Die Zeit, August 9, 2012

Unglue.it Makes Free EBooks Through A Unique Crowdfunding Website
Huffington Post, May 21, 2012

Raising money to free classic volume on Africa's oral literature
BoingBoing, May 18, 2012

Ebook Crowdfunding Platform Unglue.it Launched
Library Journal, May 17, 2012

For more information, see http://unglue.it/press.

About Open Book Publishers: 

About Open Book Publishers:
Open Book (www.openbookpublishers.com) has changed the nature of the traditional academic book. They offer free online editions of their books to benefit scholars and readers worldwide, while also selling traditional print and electronic copies. Their authors range from early-career academics to eminent scholars, chosen on the basis of academic merit and public value through a rigorous peer review process..

About Ruth Finnegan: 
Ruth Finnegan, OBE, is Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Open University where, as a founder member, she has spent much of her academic career. With a background in classical languages and literatures and anthropology, she has published widely on aspects of communication and expression, especially oral performance, literacy and music-making.

Contact Information:
For Unglue.it
Eric Hellman
President, Gluejar Inc.
[log in to unmask]


For Open Book Publishers:
Rupert Gatti
[log in to unmask]

Alessandra Tosi
Managing Director, Open Book Publishers
[log in to unmask]
40 Devonshire Road
Cambridge CB1 2BL
United Kingdom
+44 (0)1223 339929