The Student PIRGs recently launched their new Open Textbook Catalog to help faculty find high quality open textbooks.

Open textbooks listed by subject:

Accounting
Business
Computer Science
Earth Science
Economics
Mathematics
Physics

You can download the whole book, or individual sections or subsections. The book, edited by Tony Hey, Stewart Tansley and Kirstin Tolle, is being released in conjunction with the Microsoft E-science meeting currently being held at Carnegie-Mellon University.
The book is dedicated to the memory of Jim Gray and explores his intellectual legacy in Earth and Environment, Health and Well Being, Scientific Infrastructure, and Scholarly Communication. Many of the chapters are by authors well-known within the CNI community, particularly in the Scholarly Communications section, which includes contributions by Timo Hanny, Paul Ginsparg, Herbert Van de Somple and Carl Lagoze; I also had the opportunity to contribute a chapter for this section. I would urge CNI-announce readers to at least browse beyond the Scholarly Communications section; there are a number of important chapters on broader developments in e-science that I think will be of interest. There’s also a short interview wtih Tony Hey about the book at

The University of Michigan Press (UMP) is joining with HathiTrust Digital Library to open electronic content for free online access. UMP plans to have 1000 or more titles available for full viewing by year’s end. The press release announcing this partnership, and the list of the free-view Press titles in HathiTrust can be found at

Washington DC—The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published E-book Collections, SPEC Kit 313, which examines the current use of e-books in ARL member libraries; their plans for implementing, increasing, or decreasing access to e-books; purchasing, cataloging, and collection management issues; and issues in marketing to and in usage by library clientele.

By the May deadline, responses had been submitted by 75 of the 123 ARL member libraries for a response rate of 61%. Of the responding libraries, 73 (97%) reported including e-books in their collections.

According to survey responses, most institutions entered the e-book arena as part of a consortium which purchased an e-book package. The earliest forays occurred in the 1990s but the majority of libraries started e-book collections between 1999 and 2004. Purchasing at the collection level allowed libraries to acquire a mass of titles with a common interface, reducing some of the transition pains to the new format. The downside of collections is that libraries find they are often saddled with titles they would not have selected in print; also, each collection might have a different interface, adding to user frustration.

Those libraries reporting success with individually selected e-book titles cope with other problems: lag time between print and electronic publication (with electronic the lagging format), restrictive digital rights management, loss of access by ILL, and limited printing top the list of concerns. However, responses indicate a preference for title-by-title selection as a more efficient use of funds.

This SPEC Kit includes documentation from respondents in the form of collection development policies, e-book collection Web pages, e-book promotional materials, training materials for staff and users, and e-book reader loan policies.

Peer reviews of open textbooks are now available from the Community College Open Textbook Collaborative.

Art

Smarthistory: Art History Conversation (2009)

Business

Core Concepts of Marketing: A Global Text (2008)
Electronic Commerce: The Strategic Perspective (2008)
eMarketing,The Essential Guide to Online Marketing, 2nd edition (2008)
Principles of Management (2009)

Computer Science

Basic Computing Using Windows
Introduction to Computer Science (2009)
Quick Start to Excel 2002 (XP) (1998-2003)

Education

RSS Feed for the unit Key skill assessment unit: Problem Solving (2007)
The Theory and Practice of Online Learning (2nd ed.)
Common Wisdom: Peer Production of Educational Materials (2005)

Engineering

A First Course in Electrical and Computer Engineering

English and Composition

Online Technical Writing
Key skill assessment: Communication (2007)
Electronic Literature Collection Volume 1 (2006)
Methods of Discovery: A Guide to Research Writing

Languages and Communications

Spanish I (2009)

Literature

USA Literature in Brief (2007)

Math

Understanding Algebra
Applied Finite Mathematics
Collaborative Statistics
Collaborative Statistics: Custom Version
Dimensions (Geometry)
Elementary Algebra
Free High School Math Texts, Grade 10 (2008)
Fundamentals of Mathematics
Intermediate Algebra (2007)
Vector Calculus

Psychology

Psychology: A student Friendly Approach (2004)

Science

Calculus-Based Physics I