4 ms·

Tell HN: Free PDFs on MIT Press Open

33 points by tzhenghao 7y ago

There's a bunch of MIT Press books [0] that are free (open access) to download for your own intellectual curiosity. Just navigate to the book you'd like to read, click the Open Access tab and you're good to go. [0] - https://mitpress.mit.edu/mit-press-open

gardenfelder 7y ago
OP is going to have to disambiguate what it means to "click the Open Access tab and you're good to go". It's easy to assume that means there be a PDF waiting there, or at least a link to get to it. I see nothing of the sort in Firefox or in Chrome browsers. There's an open access symbol but that's not an active link. My test case is this: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/category-theory-sciences https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/category-theory-sciences linked from the top link
- greenyoda 7y ago
  I opened your URL in Chrome, clicked on the "Open Access" tab, the clicked on "View HTML" under that, then clicked "Click to preview" under the thumbnail of the cover at the left. The "preview" seems to contain the full text of the book.
Tagbert 7y ago
Ignore the “open access” in the page header. 1. Go to https://mitpress.mit.edu/mit-press-open https://mitpress.mit.edu/mit-press-open 2. Select a book 3. Scroll to below the initial summary info until you see links for: - Overview - Author(s) - Open Access 4. Click Open Access 5. Click “Download PDF”
- bitminer 7y ago
  "Computational Psychiatry"
- pedalpete 7y ago
  I can't seem to find the "Download PDF" link, in "Open Access", I only have links to view on PubPub. Are only some books available for download?
  - rudedogg 7y ago
    Yes, seems like a small number of the books are available as PDFs.
  - zzo38computer 7y ago
    Even so, I checked one of the ones on PubPub and it says the license is CC-BY-NC-ND; the Creative Commons FAQ says that format shifting is allowed even for a No Derivatives license (from what I understand), so you could presumably convert it if you want to.
throwlog83 7y ago
Recommend downloading PDF of the highly regarded classic 'The Art of Prolog' by Leon S. Sterling and Ehud Y. Shapiro (2nd ed, 1994). https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/art-prolog-second-edition https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/art-prolog-second-edition

33 points by tzhenghao 7y ago

gardenfelder 7y ago

OP is going to have to disambiguate what it means to "click the Open Access tab and you're good to go". It's easy to assume that means there be a PDF waiting there, or at least a link to get to it. I see nothing of the sort in Firefox or in Chrome browsers. There's an open access symbol but that's not an active link. My test case is this: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/category-theory-sciences https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/category-theory-sciences linked from the top link

greenyoda 7y ago
I opened your URL in Chrome, clicked on the "Open Access" tab, the clicked on "View HTML" under that, then clicked "Click to preview" under the thumbnail of the cover at the left. The "preview" seems to contain the full text of the book.

Tagbert 7y ago

Ignore the “open access” in the page header. 1. Go to https://mitpress.mit.edu/mit-press-open https://mitpress.mit.edu/mit-press-open 2. Select a book 3. Scroll to below the initial summary info until you see links for: - Overview - Author(s) - Open Access 4. Click Open Access 5. Click “Download PDF”

bitminer 7y ago
"Computational Psychiatry"
pedalpete 7y ago
I can't seem to find the "Download PDF" link, in "Open Access", I only have links to view on PubPub. Are only some books available for download?
- rudedogg 7y ago
  Yes, seems like a small number of the books are available as PDFs.
- zzo38computer 7y ago
  Even so, I checked one of the ones on PubPub and it says the license is CC-BY-NC-ND; the Creative Commons FAQ says that format shifting is allowed even for a No Derivatives license (from what I understand), so you could presumably convert it if you want to.

throwlog83 7y ago

Recommend downloading PDF of the highly regarded classic 'The Art of Prolog' by Leon S. Sterling and Ehud Y. Shapiro (2nd ed, 1994). https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/art-prolog-second-edition https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/art-prolog-second-edition