Recent NYT article reports on the recent trend of university professors publishing their books online instead of in the classic textbook format.
Cohen makes an interesting comparison of the textbook and pharmaceutical companies. They both provide a service that is essentially good and beneficial; while they both have customers who are willing to sacrifice a lot of money for their services. All this while those who recommend their services do not notice price changes (doctors or professors).
Also notable is M.I.T.’s OpenCourseWare, where students and teachers rewrite, edit, swap materials as long as the original author is credited. Obvious benefits are that professors get the sections of books that they really want to teach. Most of my professors are already doing this in the form of readers. But an online version of this would save a lot of paper, and raise a few legal issues.
