Open Source Textbooks
From the about bloody time department:
Open Source Textbooks Challenge a Paradigm | Epicenter from Wired.com
Spent some time reading about their model.
Good stuff - focus on the lecturers creating a customised book, and creating demand (sofar, so traditional) and let the book act as the centre of a hub of pedagogical tools.
Neat ideas like book customisation (chapter rearrangement etc).
Let students use web-based versions for free, and buy cheap printed versions.
Particularly interested in seeing this up and running.
I think there's going to be an increasing dichotomy between printed books (disposable airport thrillers, through to beautifully bound objets; high-end hard covers) and electronic 'books' that are essentially idea/knowledge containers.
Surely business books are also ripe for a similar 'flat world' treatment, but reversed on pricing?
Students have time, but no money. Business users have the opposite constraint.
Business readers want less text; the 'cost' of their time is worth far more than the price of the book, so I really think electronic texts as 'idea containers' suits business publishing down to the ground.
I'd love to see the resurgence of the pamphlet as a publishing format for business 'books' - just the key idea, some examples - the less time I spend reading a business idea, the better.
Without the requirement to pad the book to make a 400 page object, business authors could publish much tighter information to an appreciative, busy readership.
