Free books in Minnesota

One of the blogs I follow is one on the future of advertising by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Initially very enamored with MIT’s Open Courseware initiative, I was even more pleased to discover — by way of their advertising blog — that there is a cutting edge open, free textbook publishing company right here in Minnesota (bugs me that I had to read a blog from Boston to find out about something 25 minutes from my office…but I digress).

The company is Freeload Press and they state their mission as:

Freeload Press, Inc. began in 2004 with the goal of using sponsorship to deliver more affordable course materials. A collaboration of academics, authors, publishers and media executives developed the free  + download = Freeload model, with textbooks supported by commercial sponsors. Now, with authors, books, and sponsors in place–and over 100 colleges using Freeload Press, Inc. course materials–we are expanding sponsorship model for use by other publishers.

Back in the early 90’s, I was a consultant to Harcourt Brace College Publisher’s in Fort Worth, TX — a division which appears to have been absorbed into some other Harcourt business unit. My work with them was in a startup new media division delivering value-added material on CD-ROM, shrinkwrapped in the back of new college textbooks in the hope that students would buy new ones over used. Even then, the college textbook was plummeting in sales as the market (students and parents) railed against the prices college publishers demanded.

I often wondered back then about the efficacy of ebooks. Aware of the technical limitations (textbooks are printed at 1200dpi and screens are either 72dpi (Mac) or 96dpi (PC)), I still could already visualize ebooks at some point replacing textbooks. I also wondered, “Why are there dozens of competing psychology textbooks? Geography, math, biology ones?” It seemed as though there was a ton of redundancy and inefficiency in this marketplace since it was highly doubtful there could be THAT much difference in these disciplines to warrant so many texts on the same subjects.

MIT’s Open Courseware project was begun to essentially collaborate with the rest of the market (higher education) on baseline courses that they ALL have to deliver (but read their site and draw your own conclusions) so each higher education institution could instead focus on their respective competitive advantage. Freeload Press is clearly focused directly on the need for a budgetary constrained market (education overall) to have access to knowledge (which is accelerating toward free anyway) and enable and empower all of us to move the world forward through superior levels of education (which benefits us all).

There have been grandiose ideas of sponsored educational materials before…just look at what Chris Whittle has done. Still, something tells me the stars are aligned this time with a more fundamental understanding of the power of the internet, that there isn’t a free lunch and someone has to pay, and the great success of the open source software movement and manifestations of the collective adding value in the form of Wikipedia.

I’m gonna keep my eye on Freeload Press as I know they’re on to something.

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2 Comments

  1. Lynn Brown on August 22, 2011 at 8:27 pm

    Mr. Borsch, I came across your blog through a search for free books in MN. I teach in a government school in Thailand in a program featuring English as the second language. We are in need of books in English to supplement our modest library. Limited funds have been available for purchase of books, and even less for the high costs of shipping from English speaking countries to Thailand. This year however we have a student group who will be visiting MN in October at Cambridge-Isanti High School in Cambridge. Each student will be allowed 2 pieces of checked luggage. We hope to make the most of that luggage allowance by returning with books for our library. Can you help? Either through contacts you may have with publishers, or suggestions on who we can contact to ask for donations of books. New or used are equally appreciated. The students are middle and high school age, with beginners still at primary school reading levels. Non-fiction, fiction, comic books, all welcome. We have a limited need also for Japanese, Spanish, Korean, and French for third language learners. Thank you in advance.



  2. Steve Borsch on August 23, 2011 at 12:20 pm

    Hello Lynn,

    I’ll reply by email with some detail and I’ll see what I can do to help.


    Steve



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Podcasting hit the mainstream in July of 2005 when Apple added podcast show support within iTunes. I'd seen this coming so started podcasting in May of 2005 and kept going until August of 2007. Unfortunately was never 'discovered' by national broadcasters, but made a delightfully large number of connections with people all over the world because of these shows. Click here to view the archive of my podcast posts.