4 ms·

there are a lot of these in existence. Not a specific model to get the books into the right hands though. For example, the wikibooks if you look them up would

there are a lot of these in existence. Not a specific model to get the books into the right hands though. For example, the wikibooks if you look them up would fit the bill. And there's a model using version control like GIT to enable people to fork their own versions of the book into branches. BUT what's the divide? You have to get the book in front of the educators, and you have to make it as easy to acquire the printed item. The reason why coke and pepsi and frito lay are in every store and dominate? They keep showing up and restocking. Their product is the most available and they keep doing it. So make the book printable, easy to acquire and just as easy for the professors to say yes as it is for them to just sign a paper when the publisher's sales guy shows up with an expensive book and a small token bribe to encourage them.

impendia 12y ago
There is this, for example: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Calculus.pdf http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Calculus.... Not terrible, but not as good as commercial textbooks. (Please let me know if you are aware of anything better.)
- michaelbuddy 12y ago
  I've never really browsed the mathematics area of these types of books. I do recall a story of high school teachers developing their own text making news in the past 5-7 years or so. While I don't really have time to at the moment, you'll find the best wikibooks / gitbooks.io are probably on programming. Or topics where less diagram content is involved or required. Also when it's an open source book anybody can extrapolate the content and reformat it in design software suc as indesign, scribus or whatever. The framework and methods exist, but there are gaps in the process that have made it so a professor is gonna make their own book and bind it through the campus copy shop. But we know the divide, we know a way to make it work, just need people to jump in I guess and have a reason to do it well for less cost. It will take a couple entrepreneurial people, but it would make for an attention-getting enterprise. hacker news might breed the right kind of people for this.

impendia 12y ago

There is this, for example: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Calculus.pdf http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Calculus.... Not terrible, but not as good as commercial textbooks. (Please let me know if you are aware of anything better.)

michaelbuddy 12y ago
I've never really browsed the mathematics area of these types of books. I do recall a story of high school teachers developing their own text making news in the past 5-7 years or so. While I don't really have time to at the moment, you'll find the best wikibooks / gitbooks.io are probably on programming. Or topics where less diagram content is involved or required. Also when it's an open source book anybody can extrapolate the content and reformat it in design software suc as indesign, scribus or whatever. The framework and methods exist, but there are gaps in the process that have made it so a professor is gonna make their own book and bind it through the campus copy shop. But we know the divide, we know a way to make it work, just need people to jump in I guess and have a reason to do it well for less cost. It will take a couple entrepreneurial people, but it would make for an attention-getting enterprise. hacker news might breed the right kind of people for this.