One of the primary goals of SBL’s International Cooperation Initiative (ICI) is to provide free electronic access to selected SBL publications to scholars and students in under-resourced countries. With the help and enthusiastic support of the SBL technology staff, the ICI Task Force has put in place a system that will identify persons visiting the SBL web site from an IP address in a country whose Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita is substantially lower than the average of the GDP per capita of the USA and European Union. We are pleased to announce that after months of testing, the system is now operational and accessible through the Online Books page.

The SBL books in PDF posted to the Online Books page are fully and freely downloadable for visitors who fit the established IP profile. The books are available as complete individual files or in sections that have been set up to accommodate those with slower dial-up Internet connections. Each month more books will be added to the site with the goal being to provide a well-rounded reservoir of scholarship that will have something of interest to those in all areas of biblical studies.

In addition to the Online Books project, the ICI has established eight other objectives that are enumerated in the 2007 SBL Society Report . An Advisory Board consisting of scholars from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Islands is operating through a listserv managed through the University of Alberta. Anyone interested in participating in the work of the ICI Advisory Board should contact one of the Task Force members: Ehud Ben Zvi (chair), Saul Olyan, and Leigh Andersen (SBL staff).

Citation: , " SBL’s International Cooperation Initiative (ICI)," SBL Forum , n.p. [cited Jan 2008]. Online:http://sbl-site.org/Article.aspx?ArticleID=747