Free textbooks!

[LadyShea]

Just because some people like to larn stuff

CK12.ORG - FlexBooks

[maddog]

"Free textbooks!"

are they imprisoned?

#2495

[LadyShea]

Information wants to be free

[Shake]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Just because some people like to larn stuff

CK12.ORG - FlexBooks

... available for iPad

Oh. I thought you meant real books, which after all, is what students prefer.

[LadyShea]

I wasn't thinking of these for students, just people who want to learn stuff for free. Just this week a forum member, Malloch, started studying Quantum Mechanics, for the personal enrichment.

But thanks for the link, that led to another provider Book Boon that uses .pdf rather than epub

And anyway, how could I have possibly meant real books? What textbook publisher just gives them away?

[lisarea]

Those aren't iPad only. You can print them yourself, have them printed, or view them in some other reader if you want. epub is a pretty standard ebook format. Them calling out the iPad just looks like a plain old SEO namecheck.

They're still free textbooks, and even if you pay to print them, the overall price is still really cheap.

[wildernesse]

Actually, textbook publishers do give book samples away for free--just not to the public. If you had a university nearby, you could probably scrounge a decent set of textbooks on all sorts of things by figuring out where the free book cart or shelf was in different departments. That's how I got my ornithology textbook.

[Shake]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

And anyway, how could I have possibly meant real books? What textbook publisher just gives them away?

Why couldn't you have meant real books? I don't follow textbook publishers, so I don't know if any do give them away, but that doesn't mean that it isn't possible that at least one might. How did I know it might not be some sort of marketing scheme? That's what intrigued me and why I checked in here. People have done stranger things than give away free textbooks.

[LadyShea]

Textbook publishing is kind of known to a be a big money (and greedy) industry. Students pay about 1000/year for their books alone. Congress and some states have had to pass regulations because of their unfair pricing practices. The new Federal regs just went into effect this month from the Higher Education Opportunity Act .

[Kael]

I could see some independent organization giving away textbooks, at least under special circumstances, but I don't see the publishers doing it directly.

BTW, thanks for the link, LS.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by Kael

I could see some independent organization giving away textbooks, at least under special circumstances, but I don't see the publishers doing it directly.

And even if they did, it wouldn't be to anyone and everyone, it would be limited.

[Ensign Steve]

Damnit, I came to this thread expecting free hardcopy textbooks and it did not deliver. YOU OWE ME!

[ChuckF]

yes hello when will i be reciev free texbewk

[lisarea]

Although I am in no way involved in the fraud perpetrated in this thrad, in the spirit of good will, I'd like to help.

I'm going to take a pretty big loss on this, I'm afraid, but I feel obliged to help make good on LadyShea's unfulfilled obligations. So anyone interested in receiving FREE TEXTBOOKS, contact me with your valid credit card information, and I will provide you with FREE TEXTBOOKS at no cost to you and only a moderate fee for shipping and handling.

I anticipate a high demand, so I'm going to be forced to limit my offer to the first one hundred respondents, with a STRICT LIMIT of five orders per household.

[viscousmemories]

Speaking of free textbooks...

Early this year, Oracle, the database software maker, acquired Sun for $7.4 billion, leaving Mr. McNealy without a job. He has since decided to aim his energy and some money at Curriki, an online hub for free textbooks and other course material that he spearheaded six years ago.

“We are spending $8 billion to $15 billion per year on textbooks” in the United States, Mr. McNealy says. “It seems to me we could put that all online for free.”

The nonprofit Curriki fits into an ever-expanding list of organizations that seek to bring the blunt force of Internet economics to bear on the education market. Even the traditional textbook publishers agree that the days of tweaking a few pages in a book just to sell a new edition are coming to an end.

[naturalist.atheist]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

Speaking of free textbooks...

Thanks for that VM. At some point I expect book readers like Amazon's Kindle to get to $50 or below. At that point I don't think it will be long before the whole school book mess falls apart. The days of hauling backpacks full of books will be over and just on the savings from the elimination of shipping, storage and handling of all those paper books the school systems could easily fund the readers. Perhaps I'm being too cynical, but I expect the quality of school text books to stay the same.

[Ensign Steve]

MIT offers free online course material including video lectures, exams, and homework problems for almost any course you could want.

I'm sure someone wants to bitch that it's not as helpful as having an actual MIT professor come to your house and teach it to you personally, but it's free, so here you go.

[LadyShea]

Sorry, I would have posted about MIT's free courses, but kinda assumed everyone knew about it for some reason.

How cool is that, BTW??