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Free MIT Engineering Text For Download
An anonymous reader writes " The (sci-tech) Library Question is reporting, "The third edition of A Heat Transfer Textbook, written by John H Lienhard V (MIT) and John H Lienhard IV (U Houston), has been made available on the web. The book is an introduction to heat transfer, geared towards engineering students. It may be downloaded free of charge. The authors explain:
We are placing a mechanical engineering textbook into an electronic format for worldwide, no-charge distribution. The aim of this effort is to explore the possibilities of placing textbooks online -- effectively giving them away. Two potential benefits should accrue from doing this. First, in electronic format, textbooks can be continually corrected and updated, without the delays inherent in printed books (second and later editions are typically published on a five-year cycle). Second, free textbooks hold the potential for fundamentally altering the economics of higher education, particularly in those environments where money is scarce."
Here (introductory physics.)
I have started to collect a survey of free eBooks, which contains links to free tech eBooks as well as fiction eBooks (and free AudioBooks).
For those of you who are interested in free (as in speech and beer) textbooks, please check out Wikibooks. It's a Wiki, like the Wikipedia, but wholly devoted to offering free books (primarily textbooks).
I'm not involved in running Wikibooks, I just use it and contribute to it, and I think it's a great project worth spreading the word about; plus, the more people contribute to it, the better it is.
Fuck it
Brad Lucier at Purdue founded an online publishing group called Trillia, which does something similar.
He has submitted a related story on Slashdot before.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
As a new Assistant Professor at a U.S. institution, I am required to perform Teaching, Research, Service, and publish scholarly publications in PEER REVIEWED journals, etc. If this is not done satisfactorily, I will be released within several years. In order for the writing of textbooks to contribute to my retention, the 'system' requires publication through a 'major' commercial publisher in your field of knowledge. This is a major reason, IMHO, that we do not see more offerings like the subject of this article. Most professors are lucky to make 10% profit on their text publishing and my discussions in this matter with the publishing houses reveals their near-future plans to offer electronic texts online...on a chapter-by-chapter basis. This would allow instructors to assemble their own 'custom assembled' texts for courses.
wikibooks.org