The Library has reached a deal with publisher Brill providing access to 3685 law e-books through Evidence Based Acquisition (EBA) until December 2024. After this period resources will be selected for the collection for permanent inclusion.

What is an EBA agreement?

An Evidence Based Acquisition agreement offers access to a comprehensive package of e-books over an extended period, within a predetermined budget. It is a cost-effective way to evaluate and acquire content that meets the information needs of our UM users. At the end of the agreement, the Law Faculty’s Library Committee receives an overview of the usage of the e-books and can select the ones they want to keep in the collection within the pre-agreed sum. This purchase decision will be based on both usage throughout the access period and other criteria, e.g. prioritise for literature used in education.

Scope of the agreement

This EBA was discussed and approved by the Law Faculty’s Library Committee and is funded from the legal budget.

Over twelve months, all UM community members will have access to 3685 titles though the current collection may contain fewer titles. The missing titles (in the appendix all on ‘not yet published’ concern new titles to be published in the coming year and titles to be digitised in the Brill Book Archive project. Brill is actively digitising print works dating back to 1683. Forthcoming titles within the license term are automatically added weekly during the license term.

With a deposit of € 8000, – the UM gains access to titles worth approximately € 600.000 for a year. At the end of the year, the Law Faculty’s Library Committee can utilise the deposit (based on usage and specific collection preferences) to acquire content permanently.

In terms of law books, publisher Brill focuses primarily on books in the field of international law and human rights law. In addition, Brill specialises in Islamic law and publishes, for example, Brill’s Arab and Islamic Laws Series.
Other series that might be of interest are:

  • United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982
  • International Criminal Law Series
  • International Environmental Law
  • International Humanitarian Law Series
  • Legal Aspects of Sustainable Development
  • Nijhoff International Trade Law Series.

Invitation to explore the Brill EBA agreement

You can search for individual titles with LibSearch, the library’s discovery tool. Your user experience is as if the library already owns the book, with unlimited simultaneous access and the ability to download and print.

Need assistance?

If you require assistance accessing or using the collection, or you have any question about this EBA, please contact Ask Your Librarian. You can also visit the ‘EBA: Brill’s Evidence Based Acquisition Model’ webpage.