Open Source Textbook Service Sees Interest Jump

A United States publisher of open source college textbooks – licensed under Creative Commons and fully remixable – has seen interest in its service increase more than 30-fold in the past several months, according to a press release [pdf] by the company. Flat World Knowledge aims to reduce the cost of textbooks for university students by creating a collection of texts online that professors can use as-is, or edit and mix to suit their class needs. The company charges for PDF versions to print and for print copies of the books, but parts with them at cheaper prices than those usually found at college book stores, they say. The service started off slowly and had only a thousand users by the spring of this year. But the company says it has grown to 38,000 users in advance of the September 2009 school year, after two trial semesters and the publication this March and April of its first 10 or so titles. Flat World plans to develop more textbooks, and to branch out from their initial concentration on business and economics to branches of the humanities, social sciences and the natural sciences in the near future.