L'Harmathèque | eDesiderata

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Overview

L’Harmathèque's platform offers a large volume of content in the form of ebooks, articles, videos, and audio recordings on many subjects in the humanities and social sciences. One notable subject area is Africana.The content of the ebooks comes from a variety of French publishing imprints, including L’Harmattan, Pagala, Odin, and IXE.

Provider:

L'Harmattan

Posted:

Feb 22, 2013 5:48pm

Updated:

Apr 1, 2021 2:23pm

Source

CRL reviews are based on independent research. Information is researched by CRL staff and other specialists at CRL libraries. See CRL Review for additional source notes.

Details

Collection Content

Subject Areas:

Arts and Humanities

Social Sciences

Resource Types:

Electronic books

Electronic journals

Sound recordings

Video recordings

Major Languages:

French

- Denotes data sourced directly from publisher

Content Details:


Geographic coverage	Europe, Africa, Caribbean, Latin America, Asia, and Indian and Pacific Oceans
Chronological coverage	contemporary (from 1975 to present)
Content types	journals, monographs, collective works, films, audiobooks
Source formats	paper, video and audio recording
Total titles	26,500 ebooks, 170 journal titles, 430 films, 600 audiobooks
Total pages	6–7 million
Digital collection launch date	2010
Update frequency	monthly (c. 230 ebooks added monthly)
Collection ongoing	Y
Completion date	NA
Available supplements	NA

Specifications

Metadata:


MARC records available	Y
Creator of MARC records	L’Harmathèque
Structural metadata exposed anywhere?	NA
Subject authorities used	BISAC, CLIL
Name authorities used

Technical Platform:


Browser compatibility	IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera
Authentication options	IP recognition
Archiving solution – master files	NA
Archiving solution – derivative files	NA
Availability in web discovery tools	Y
Open URL target	NA (but ebooks have URL "permalinks")
Federated searching, z39.50	NA
Local host option	N
Usage statistics	Y

Interface Tools:


Full text displayed	Y
Page images	NA
Color images	Y (10%)
Search full text	Y
Advanced search	Y
Search within results	Y
Limit results by dates and/or document types	Y
Display highlighted search terms	Y
Display snippet -- search term in context	N
Relevance sorting	Y
Save searches	N
Download PDF	Y
Download HTML	Y (epub files for 6000 titles)
Print page	Y
Print full document	Y (only as an extra option)
Export citations	N
Annotation tools	Y
Cross-product searching	Y
ILL	N
Restrictions on use	Y

Terms and Provider Details

Terms:


	Options
Subscription option	Y
Purchase option	Y
Multiple year payments option	Y
Hosting charges	N
List of purchasers available	Y
Sample license available	N
MARC records purchase fee	N
Price tier basis	NA

Provider:

L'Harmattan

Website:

http://www.harmattan.fr/groupeharmattan/

Main Address:

5/7 rue de l'école Polytechnique

75005 Paris

France

CRL Review

Collection Content:

L’Harmathèque's platform offers a large volume of content in the form of ebooks, articles, videos, and audio recordings on many subjects in the humanities and social sciences. One notable subject area is Africana. The content of the ebooks comes from a variety of French publishing imprints, including L’Harmattan, Pagala, Odin, and IXE.

Currently the platform contains more than 26,000 ebooks, 17,000 articles, 400 films, and 600 audio files available. At least 2,300 new titles are added to the collection annually (the publishers estimate that around 230 ebook titles are added monthly). This large number of ebooks covers a wide range of subject areas in the humanities and social sciences, novels, and children’s books. Note that one source of content for the publisher L'Harmattan is theses from MA or licentiate and doctoral candidates. An article in the French edition of Wikipedia on the extent of L'Harmattan's publishing efforts notes criticism of their method of claiming revenues from the sale of theses.1

According to the description provided on the website, article content is from journals and book chapters, although no further selection criteria are given. The Appendix, L'Harmathèque contains a complete journal title list. The videos are primarily documentaries and theatrical productions. The audio collection includes many audiobooks, in a variety of languages.

Delivery:

The interface is in French. In the portals, ebooks are divided by subject into browsable “bouquets”. An advanced search option allows the user to narrow down the large amount of content. Unfortunately, the user cannot search by language of the material.

Ebooks can be read either on the platform’s online reader, or downloaded using Adobe Digital Editions. Articles are read using Adobe. Viewing the videos requires the use of DivX. The audio content is available through Flash.

Strengths and Weaknesses:

The database has the advantage of having a wide variety of subjects and formats within the areas of the humanities and social sciences, including an impressive number of newly added texts, as well as the children's ebooks, audio books, and videos. It would be nice to have resources in the sciences as well. The periodicals content is not as extensive as the variety in CAIRN, but it does offer periodical titles not in CAIRN (mostly those issued from Harmattan, such as L'Homme et la Société, and Cultures et Conflits.)

Comments from CRL members during trial access included:

Downloading a book requires installation of Adobe Editions. One advantage is its compatibility with iPads.
Instructions for printing full document did not work successfully.
Need a better display of the date of a periodical article.
Limiting a search to "North America" delivers mostly content from the United States, although there is some content from Francophone Canada and Mexico.

Reviewers:

Center for Research Libraries

Judith Alspach - Project Coordinator, Global Resources Network
Virginia Kerr - Digital Program Manager

Contributors:

American Academy in Rome

Sebastian Hierl - Drue Heinz Librarian, Arthur & Janet C. Ross Library

University of Alberta Libraries

Sources

Sources for this review include information publicly posted or obtained directly from the publisher; data collected by CRL staff and specialists at CRL libraries; and examination of the digital collection when possible. Other sources are noted where cited. CRL continues to gather additional information on this resource and to solicit critical assessment.

Endnotes:

1"Éditions L'Harmattan," Wikipédia, accessed March 5, 2013.

CRL Offers & Status

Status	Current	Description
CRL Flagged	no	Potential interest to CRL community
Offer Pending	no	Currently a candidate for CRL offer
Active Offer	yes	Currently offered for purchase or new subscription
Trial Access	no	Available for trial
Renewal Offer	no	Currently offered for renewal
Expired Offer	no	Past offers
Inactive / Declined	no	No longer under consideration by CRL
Reviewed by CRL	yes	Evaluation available by CRL and community
Special Access	no	Member-only access available for a limited time

The complete offer and activity details for this resource are only available to CRL members.

Appendix

Title List:

List of Journals contained in L'Harmathèque as of Feb. 2014

The current list of ebook titles is available at www.harmatheque.com/listeebook_prix.xls

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