There was an article in Wired Campus entitled "Rice U. Acquires Rights to Popular Textbook to Offer It Free Online." Rice is making available on-line the statistics textbook Collaborative Statistics, not just to Rice students, but to all students thanks to the Maxfield Foundation which provided the financial support for this project. Rice should be heartily applauded for this (especially making it available to all students) and hopefully other universities will follow their lead. As school starts for most colleges and universities in just a few weeks, incoming freshmen are going to learn the pain of buying books, particularly at university bookstores. Even ordering textbooks on-line is quite expensive. This has led to ventures like Chegg.com which rents books by the semester to students. This certainly keeps students from the frustrating experience of paying hundreds for books and then selling them back to the bookstores for pennies on the dollar. I have to admit that when I choose textbooks for classes I am teaching that price is one factor I consider before I send in my book order to the university co-op.
RSM
Ancient History Ramblings 