UCL Press books exceed seven million book downloads

Since launching in 2015, the Press has published more than 280 academic books – including monographs, edited collections and textbooks- in a wide range of subjects. UCL Press books have been downloaded in 246 countries and territories across the world, reaching readers in countries as far afield as the Northern Mariana Islands and Antarctica, in addition to serving the needs of scholarly communities closer to home.

The 7 millionth download was Lockdown Cultures: The arts and humanities in the year of the pandemic, 2020-21. Edited by UCL's Dean of Arts and Humanities, Stella Bruzzi, and Maurice Biriotti, with Sam Caleb and Harvey Wiltshire, the book is a unique response to the question of how the humanities commented on and were impacted by one of the dominant crises of our times: the Covid-19 pandemic.

The most popular UCL Press title continues to be How the World Changed Social Media by Professor of Anthropology Daniel Miller and a collective of eight anthropologists. The title has been downloaded over 725,000 times since it was published in 2016 and has been translated into a variety of languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Portuguese and Italian. 

Paul Ayris, Pro-Vice-Provost (Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science) and Chief Executive of UCL Press, said:

“‘UCL Press goes from strength to strength, The Press has literally re-invented the concept of academic publishing for monographs. The commercial route to monograph publishing is broken. Open Access, with its global impact, has re-defined what impact means in a scholarly setting. UCL is delighted to have achieved such success with UCL Press within 10 years of its birth. Open Access monographs are the future.’