An Experiment in Open-Access Textbook Publishing: Changing the World One Textbook at a Time1

摘要

The revolt against the ever-increasing costs of postsecondary texts has begun. Nonone can deny that reselling texts, sharing texts, e-book reserves, and free copiesnthat are resold have forced the commercial publishers to take action. But atnwhat cost to higher education? Just as the cable monopolies are beginning tonlose ground to other delivery systems of broadcast content, so too are textbookncompanies losing ground to other forms of delivery. Most commercially developedne-textbooks are little more than enhanced print editions and have limited accessnand restrictions on printing and downloading the content. Open-access textsnsolve many of these problems, but, as many now realize, ‘open’ does not equaln‘no cost.’ This article will explore some of the forces that are driving the open-naccess phenomenon, and describes the joint effort by the University Press ofnFlorida and the University of Florida Department of Mathematics project fornopen-access calculus texts.