HBI Books Enjoy Robust Online Life
June 3, 2019
By Amy Powell
Elana Maryles Sztokman was stunned to learn that the book she co-wrote with Chaya Rosenfeld Gorsetman, "Educating in the Divine Image: Gender Issues in Orthodox Day Schools," had been downloaded more than 11,000 times from the Brandeis Institutional Repository (BIR).
The award-winning book, published in 2013, had a press run of 850 and another 100 ebook sales, but none of these numbers compare to the book's online life through the BIR. For Sztokman, who passionately cares that her research be seen by the widest swath of people, this came as great news.
"This book has a very important mission. It's about how we transmit messages about putting people into gender boxes, which can often be so painful, and which can take years or decades to heal from. I am so grateful that people are reading this and I hope that it makes people think," Sztokman said.
Brandeis University established the BIR in 2008 as a resource for the Brandeis community to showcase, organize, share, and preserve research and scholarship in an Open Access repository. In this format, more people find the research because it comes up in Google searches, helping it find a way to interested readers, sometimes in far away lands where it was never available in print. For example, "Educating in the Divine Image,"& has most of the downloads from the U.S. and U.K., but there are several from Japan, Canada, France, Russia, Germany and Israel.
Sylvia Fuks-Fried, editorial director of Brandeis University Press (BUP), said that BUP and University Press of New England decided to put titles on the BIR as a way of "giving back to the community,”" but also as a way of "extending the life of this investment and building on it."
Books that might have sold between 400 to 600 copies have had thousands of downloads over the years. It's a way to preserve access to books that are backlisted or out of print, extending the life of the research "by making it free and available around the world."
Since 2008, three HBI series have gradually added titles that are both out of print and still available. To date, there are 94,702 downloads of 18 books in the three HBI series. That includes 10 titles in the HBI Series on Jewish Women, four in the Brandeis Series on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law and four in the HBI Translation Series, a series not available in any other format. The titles in the Translation Series were published in their original languages in print form, but only on the BIR in English, making international research not otherwise accessible to English speakers both free and available. Internal research shows that free downloads often drive sales.
"We know from our experience that people will find the book because of a Google search, but won't be happy to just download. They want to read in their armchair and they buy the book if it's available,” Fuks-Fried said.
Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, HBI dDirector and co-editor of the Brandeis Series on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law (with Sylvia Neil) and the HBI Series on Jewish Women (with Sylvia Barack Fishman), said she has received inquiries from Singapore, Malaysia and other countries where the books are not in circulation.
"Over the years, I have been contacted by people who found out about the work of the HBI because the BIR makes this work available, enabling the international reach of both our research and our backlist.”
For example, "Gender, Religion, & Family Law: Theorizing Conflicts between Women’s Rights and Cultural Traditions" by Lisa Fishbayn Joffe and Sylvia Neil has been downloaded 5,459 times, mostly in the U.S. and U.K., but also Japan, Russia, the Philippines, India, Canada, France and Poland. Shibuya, a part of Tokyo, is one of the top viewing cities.
Two books on menstruation, "Women and Water: Menstruation in Jewish Life and Law" by Rahel R. Wasserfall and "Forsaken: The Menstruant in Medieval Jewish Mysticism" by Sharon Faye Koren, account for 22,323 downloads, far more than their press runs or print sales. The downloads are coming from countries all over the world — mostly from Europe, but some in Asia and Australia.
"It's fascinating to see where they are downloaded," said Fuks-Fried. "There are many places where libraries can't afford to buy the books or didn't buy the books." She views the BIR as the "gift that keeps on giving," providing access to Brandeis research all over the world to those who may have no ability to find it or use it.
Joffe agreed. "The BIR makes this available to people who may not have access to a university library. Now, people around the world can get access to HBI books and other Brandeis research. The BIR makes the books and their topics available to a worldwide audience."
Amy Powell is the assistant director of HBI.
Editor’s note: Converting older books to a format that can be used on the BIR costs about $1,000, according to Sylvia Fuks-Fried, editorial director of Brandeis University Press. If anyone is interesting in discussing this opportunity, email Fuks-Fried.