Tue Feb 25, 2020 02:45 PM

I was going to keep this as a surprise for my 2 year anniversary in April, but I am far too excited. I just received an ebook copy of Ludwig Konig’s 1599 _Fewrnew Modelbuch_, Lotz #35. It is a scan of the copy belonging to the Basel University Library.

The library is one of 37 participants in the eBook on Demand program. You can make a request to have any book in their institutions published between 1500 and 1900 scanned and made available. The prices are very reasonable. If you decide to publish it, they request a specimen copy, but there are few restrictions on what you do with it otherwise. If the book is out of copyright, they will then also make it available (for free) on the library’s website after after a delay of three months.

So, I had them scan a modelbuch that was not already publically available. I’m planning to make it available on my website (that is currently in development.) I’m rather thrilled to get one more book out there and in use. Konig isn’t a particularly unique book. It has plates from Vinciolo, Siebmacher, Pagano, and several other publishers rather than new patterns. It just happened to be the one I ran across that was available via EoB. Now that I have used the service, I will be seeing what else is available.

http://www.books2ebooks.eu/en/content/european-books-available-ebooks-request-and-reasonable-price