On Textbooks (Part II)

Posted Tue Nov 29, 2005 in

In my first article, I took on Surowiecki’s comments on the price of college textbooks and the implication that college professors are, at the least, irresponsible in their selection of class texts. I’d like to continue the idea with some thoughts of my own about textbooks, which will eventually tie into my philosophy of teaching. I think this is a good forum for me to explore my thoughts and begin the process of refining them.

Surowiecki says:

...people in the open-source movement have talked of producing free textbooks, the way they currently produce free encyclopedias and free software…

My first response is that there’s free, and then there’s free…

I’ve been to the Wikipedia and their spin-off, Wikibook. Like everything else, there are good points and bad points to these endeavors. Let me take the Wikipedia for example.

In simplest terms, the Wikipedia is a open-source encyclopedia, authored by multiple (in this case legion) authors. I’ve read some of the articles and they can be very good. The very open-ness of the work, though, is also it’s nemesis, as far as I can tell. Newcomers are free to edit older articles. Therefore, while the result is a dynamic entity and this can be a good thing, it also has the drawback that the quality of authorship is variable.

To continue my example, I spent some time working on the Wikipedia article on hydrology. I actually have some knowledge and experience in the field. I gave freely of my time and thought the result was decent, if not stellar. (I am not, after all, a stellar hydrologist! :) After a few weeks, I revisited the article, thinking to make some edits and expand some thoughts. To my surprise, it was completely changed from what I originally wrote. (For some, this might be construed to be a good thing.) What I learned was the weakness of the system. A lesser-qualified person could come along and replace the text of an expert. There is no supervision (although the text is never lost, so we’re told) and no formal editing of the document. Needless to say this put a damper on my enthusiasm for the project. Although I’ll continue to use the Wikipedia as a source for information, I will not be contributing to its development. The effort is not a good investment of my personal resources.

Because of my inherent interest in writing and books, I spent a little time looking at the Wikibook project the other day. I’ve got a couple of back-burner projects cooking that will, someday, turn out to be texts for my discipline specialty. I’ve been thinking about how to get my work published. I fully expect I won’t have a book project with one of the textbook houses specifically because of my opinion about what makes a good textbook. But I don’t think the Wikibook project is for me either. I don’t want to give away my work. I don’t expect to make a great deal of money from publication of my expertise in hydraulics and hydrology (I certainly won’t if I go the traditional textbook-house approach), but I believe the workman is worth his wages. So, I want to receive some compensation for the effort required to produce a high-quality text. (I won’t be satisfied with anything less than high quality.)

Even if the content can be locked, which I think the Wikibook project can provide, I’m not OK with giving away my life’s work. Maybe I’m not idealistic. But I don’t think the Wikibook project will ever take off, at least not in any significant way.

I have a few more comments, which I’ll complete with Part III.

  1. First of all- I have to disagree on one point- you are a stellar hydrologist. As for textbook cost, the sample is skewed by the fact that after the first semester, there are enough used textbooks around to meet most of the need. If students actually kept their books (novel thought) the price of new books would come down because the number of sales would increase dramatically. Personally, I never sold a book back- I consider them the best investment I can make (repositories of knowledge).

    As for free textbooks- I’m firmly convinced that they would be worth what a person paid. You get no more than what you pay for.

    (for those who sold their textbooks back, that means they are worthless)

    — Dazed n Confused    29 November 2005, 17:11    #

  2. Well, we can agree to disagree on that one point. :)

    — ruminator    1 December 2005, 18:44    #