UCL Press exceeds three million book downloads!
We’re really pleased to announce that this April our total downloads figure went over 3 million for the very first time, just ahead of our 5th anniversary next month! You can see the full details here.
Since launching in 2015, we’ve published over 140 academic books – including monographs, edited collections and textbooks. Downloads have taken place in 243 countries and territories, reaching readers in countries as far afield as Iraq and Benin.
The most popular title on our list continues to be How the World Changed Social Media by Professor of Anthropology Daniel Miller and a collective of eight other esteemed global anthropologists. The title has been downloaded over 400,000 times since it was published in March 2016 and has been translated into four languages.
Other popular titles include Brexit and Beyond, edited by Dr Benjamin Martill and Dr Uta Staiger from the UCL European Institute, which has been downloaded more than 100,000 times, and the Textbook of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, by UCL and Royal Free London academics and practitioners, which has been downloaded 80,000 times in 194 territories, including India, China and Iraq.
Selected highlights:
- January 2020 - our first download in Antarctica, of Arcticness ,
- The top 5 countries in terms of downloads are USA, UK, India, Canada, Germany,
- Our top 5 most downloaded titles are: How the World Changed Social Media, Social Media in Industrial China, Brexit and Beyond, Social Media in an English Village and Textbook of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
- 13 Open Access journals; over 140,000 journal article downloads.
- The launch of Open: Environment, an interdisciplinary journal showcasing radical and critical thinking to address real world problems such as sustainability and climate change.
UCL Press has demonstrated the success of a model that seeks impact and visibility over revenue generation, and that reaches global audiences not previously considered possible for scholarly books and journals via traditional sales models. Lara Speicher, Head of Publishing at UCL Press, said:
“We are delighted to have surpassed three million downloads and this is a testament to UCL’s commitment to OA from the outset. The engagement figures demonstrate that there is demand and wide appeal for the outputs by academics, students and external audiences.”