A group of major textbook publishers has agreed to loosen restrictions in an electronic-textbook experiment beginning this month at Princeton University and other schools, following some criticism of expiration dates. The pilot project, which will see textbooks sold in downloadable form at 10 university bookstores this fall, went into operation earlier this week. Under the initial version of the program, the downloads were to be sold for 33 percent off the cost of a new, printed copy, but would only be usable for about five months. On Friday, MBS Textbook Exchange--the textbook wholesaler that is organizing the program--said publishers had agreed to extend the expiration dates for the digital textbooks. The downloads will now last from 12 months to an unlimited time, depending on the publisher.
Comment. For background, see my blog posting from August 9. If the idea is to save students money, or their backs, then students, teachers, and university administrators should know that there are several full-blown open-access textbook initiatives, such as California Open Source Textbook Project, CommonText, Libertas Academica, the Open Textbook Project, and Wikibooks. There are also hybrid initiatives like BookPower, whose ebooks are only free to developing countries.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/15/2005 05:50:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
