Curation Nation: Thoughts on the Future of Textbooks

Of late, much of my time (and that of others) has been spent thinking through the evolution of ebooks.

Yesterday, a colleague I work with, Peter Krautzberger — who heads up the MathJax initiative — pointed me to an informative, if poorly written, post by Robin Good. It was entitled Textbooks Show Aging Signs: Curated Guides Are Next. The piece is somewhat messianic in its approach to open source materials. In my view, this approach clouds judgement when it comes to innovation. I have nothing against considering open source innovation as a part of the puzzle, but to me at least, conflating innovation and discussion of open source models is akin to considering scientific question from the point of view of a belief system rather than as an empiricist.