MADRID – Web surfers all over the world can now buy printed copies of 85 works from among the 18,000 available at the Biblioteca Digital Hispanica (Hispanic Digital Library) thanks to a new print-on-demand service.

The service has emerged from the pact on cooperation between Spain’s National Library and online-publishing Web site Bubok.

After digitalizing 18,000 volumes, the Library has started the program with the aim of “giving users the opportunity to, instead of printing page by page, receive in their homes the printed and bound work,” director Milagros del Corral said Monday.

Bubok CEO Angel Maria Herrera predicted that each month they will make available “between 10 and 20 titles,” although she said she expected that this estimate will grow because “technological needs are going to set the pace.”

In addition to having the regular services offered by a digital library – downloading, printing, forwarding and the possibility to create a personalized Web space – the National Library is becoming the first institution in Europe to offer this print-on-demand service, one more step to place within reach of citizens the master works of literature and online collections.

The printing and digitalization processes are, according to Del Corral, “a very good combination that is being adapted to each type of work, to consulting and reading, to allowing you to work without (setting) your eyes on a screen or enlarging and unraveling abbreviations” when necessary.

One of the particular things about the Digital Library is that “it wants to be a type of (personalized) library, using all the support services of the collections and classifying works by issues with the help of experts,” the director said.

Thus, the “print-on-demand” service will offer reproductions “of all those original works that accept a printed format, including the publications of the National Library,” without editorial treatment and in seven different sizes, to coordinate the printed copy with the original work.

In the final price of each copy are included the costs of production – which could go as high as 80 euros ($110) – and a surcharge of 2 euros that will be allocated to the Library’s online preservation budget. EFE