I’m really disappointed to hear news from Flat World Knowledge that they will no longer be able to offer a free version of their textbooks. According to an email message sent to faculty, “As the transition to digital has changed student buying trends, one thing has become clear: the free format has become a barrier [...]

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On Tuesday, May 3rd I recorded a 15 minute segment for the Southwestern Ohio Council for Higher Education on Think TV, the local public television station in Dayton, Ohio.  My topic was the rise of digital textbooks and options available for students and faculty to access and produce textbooks and learning materials.  Below is a [...]

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Reprinted in full from Information Today NewsBreaks, by Paula Hane. Flat World Knowledge, a publisher of free and open college textbooks for students, announced the release of a new platform called MIYO (Make It Your Own). The fully-automated system gives professors greater control over textbook content, and the ability, with one click, to make their [...]

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eBook Tops All Trade Publishing Categories in February – eBookNewser World Book Mobile Launched Libraries and E-Content: Toward a More Universal Design Copyright Office submission to Congress: analysis of digitization and legal framework of the Google case David Rothman speculates On A Two Part National Digital Library More Graphic Textbooks from Flat World Knowledge The [...]

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Spotlight On Innovation: Attacking High Text Costs While Improving Outcomes Date: Monday, April 11th, 2011 Time: 3:30 pm ET / 12:30 pm PT Duration: 50 minutes followed by a live Q&A session As the high cost of college texts negatively impacts student retention and outcomes, what actions can faculty and institutions take to reverse this trend? [...]

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Last week while at ACRL, I moderated a session on the role of the academic library with the adoption of digital textbooks.  Eric Frank, Co-Founder and President of Flat World Knowledge, was on the panel.  We had a chance to talk afterward about the Flat World Knowledge product and business model and the future of [...]

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The Ohio Digital Bookshelf, Where will the 2nd Year Take Us?  A Webinar from the University System of Ohio TeachU, Presented by Stephen R. Acker, Research Director, The Ohio Digital Bookshelf The slides for the webinar are available on slideshare and the webinar archive. The following is a summary of my interpretation of the webinar.  [...]

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This CIL session was presented by Chad Mairn, Information Services Librarian at St. Petersberg College and Al Carlson, System Administrator for the Tampa Bay Library Consortium. Al Carlson: Library automation, the internet, and EPUB are the three big things he feels have hit the library industry during his career. The book is the content and [...]

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Where Do Libraries Fit in the Ebook Ecosystem? | Digital Book World The rise of the 99-cent Kindle e-book – CNET News The New Economics of the University Press — A Report from the AAUP Ohio System teams with Flat World Knowledge on free digital textbooks Interview with Ingram’s Skip Prichard Iowa to Launch Statewide [...]

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Jeff Shelstad, Founder and CEO of FlatWorld Knowledge spoke first. Jeff provided some stats on higher education: 19.1 million students in 2010 in college $850 avg spent on textbook so, it’s about a 10billion industry Cengage, Pearson, McGraw-Hill are the big 3 publishers along with many other small ones Problem is that the industry has outworn [...]

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