Free digital texts begin to challenge costly college textbooks in CA

Free digital texts begin to challenge costly college textbooks in CA By Gale Holland, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 18, 2008 The annual college textbook rush starts this month, a time of reckoning for many students who will struggle to cover eye-popping costs of $128, $156, even $198 a volume. Caltech economics professor R. Preston McAfee finds it annoying that students and faculty haven't looked harder for alternatives to the exorbitant prices. McAfee wrote a well-regarded open-source economics textbook and gave it away -- online. But although the text, released in 2007, has been adopted at several prestigious colleges, including Harvard and Claremont-McKenna, it has yet to make a dent in the wider textbook market. Full story: Free digital texts begin to challenge costly college textbooks in California - Los Angeles Times