Wilfrid Laurier University Press joins prestigious international Humanities Ebook Collection

July 28, 2025

Wilfrid Laurier University Press has been invited to contribute to the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Humanities Ebook Collection (HEB) – a major recognition of the press’s impact and leadership in scholarly publishing.

WLU Press will contribute 29 titles to the curated digital library, which is widely used by researchers through subscriptions held by more than 800 academic libraries around the world. The invitation places WLU Press among the top contributors in Canada, with the second-highest number of titles selected among Canadian university presses.

“The HEB’s invitation is a significant recognition of the quality of WLU Press’s publishing program and of our longstanding support for key fields leading advancements in equity, inclusion and justice,” said WLU Press director and publisher Mat Buntin.

The ACLS Humanities Ebook Collection is a highly selective digital archive of scholarly books. Titles are nominated by members of ACLS’s learned societies and licensed by Michigan Publishing from university and independent academic presses around the world. The collection prioritizes “unique and otherwise hard to access backlist content” – books that may not be available as ebooks elsewhere or whose existing digital formats lack accessibility features required by readers and institutions.

“Looking at the list of WLU Press publications invited into the collection, two themes that stand out are Women and Gender Studies and Indigenous Studies, both areas that the press has prioritized for decades,” said Buntin. “To have that recognized by this community of international scholars is meaningful, both for the press’s historical contributions to these fields, and because these remain areas of emphasis in our editorial program.”

WLU Press is a Benetech-certified accessible publisher, meaning the digital editions of its books meet accessibility standards used by libraries and readers globally. This makes the partnership with HEB especially fitting.

“What distinguishes the HEB collection is that it provides access to backlist books that may be out of print, or that may not be available in contemporary ebook formats,” said Buntin. “They’re not just collecting the books, but they’re converting and updating them to current standards so that these key texts remain accessible and preserved. It’s almost like giving these publications new life for people to access.”

“I continue to be amazed at the outsized accomplishments of WLU Press,” said Scott Gillies, university librarian at Laurier. “Being invited to contribute so many books to the ACLS Humanities Ebook Collection is a significant honour. The selection is an endorsement of the press’s strong and innovative publishing program, with outstanding titles across a range of areas. This invitation is an international recognition of the important role the press plays in scholarly communication.”

Sean Guynes, senior acquiring editor for the Humanities Ebook Collection, praised WLU Press’s alignment with the values of the collection.

“As an acquiring editor and, before that, an academic, WLU Press’s work stood out to me as the effort of a press devoted not only to world-class scholarship but to work in Indigenous Studies, Women and Gender Studies and Canadian Studies that is vitally important to a fuller understanding of the past and the challenges of the present,” said Guynes. “With its titles, WLU Press ensures we keep the ACLS Humanities Ebook Collection at the cutting edge of scholarship in these areas of study.”

The full list of titles invited to join the Humanities Ebook Collection is available on the WLU Press website and will be added to the HEB platform this fall. Library users at participating institutions – including the Laurier Library – can explore the works via the ACLS Humanities Ebook Collection.

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