The Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) Educational Institute has announced that it will be releasing its technical manuals and standards in electronic format for e-readers.

For decades, the ACCA environmental systems library has been the industry (and in most cases, ANSI-recognized) standard for designing, installing and maintaining indoor environmental systems. Since 2002, the organization has updated and expanded a number of these important guides for 21st century construction methods and materials. Now, ACCA has committed itself to 21st century distribution as well, with a new plan to make its core publications available in a variety of electronic formats, to as wide an audience as possible.

"Our technical publications are large, complex documents, and reconstructing them for electronic distribution is not a simple process, to say the least," says Kevin Holland, ACCA Vice President for Business Operations & Membership. "And given the large size and reference quality of many of our publications, we don't see print going away any time soon. But we have been talking with schools and training programs, as well as contractors, and there's no doubt that we must continue to expand our publications and make them available through a diversity of distribution methods."

The first two of its publications available in electronic format are Residential Duct Diagnostics & Repair, a manual explaining how to diagnose problems with duct systems and the benefits of repairing them; and LEED, Follow or Get Out of the Way! by Ellis Guiles is the story of how a commercial contractor discovers the profit to be made from "green" contracting. These manuals can be purchased and read on a computer, an iPad, an iPhone, a Kindle, an Android phone, or a BlackBerry. 

"Because we don't want to require people to purchase a specific device in order to benefit from our publications, we are using the Kindle format, at least initially," Holland says. "The Kindle platform allows for viewing and searching of books on just about every device possible, including a desktop computer, using free Kindle reader software available from Amazon."

For more information: 

www.acca.org/ebooks