More on OA textbooks

Textbooks For the 21st Century: A Guide To Free And Low Cost Textbooks, a new report from the Make Textbooks Affordable project of the Student Public Interest Research Groups, August 2006. (Thanks to Rob Capriccioso.) Excerpt:

Major publishers have done little to provide adequate lower-cost versions of most textbooks and advertise them to professors ordering books for their classes. In response, alternative and online publishers are offering lower-cost and even free versions of some textbooks. Although these alternatives have the potential to compete with the traditional publishers, they have not yet secured a significant part of the textbook market....

Students spend about $900 each year on textbooks, a high price tag that can pose a financial obstacle for students already facing rising tuition and dwindling financial aid....

In order to provide a snapshot of the lowercost textbook market, we examined the lowercost options offered by the major publishers in their online catalogues and identified several alternative publishers offering textbooks for a lower price or for free. We found:

A growing number of alternative publishers and faculty are offering lowercost and free textbooks....

These books offer the same educational value as traditional textbooks; faculty members we surveyed who have used these alternative textbooks in a classroom setting said they are satisfied with the books' educational content.

Unfortunately, at this time these alternative publishers offer only a limited number of titles. In addition, some faculty members have raised concerns about online textbooks since not all students have convenient access to the Internet....