[HN Gopher] LibreTexts - Free The Textbook
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LibreTexts - Free The Textbook
Author : marcodiego
Score : 103 points
Date : 2022-01-17 14:47 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (libretexts.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (libretexts.org)
| dang wrote:
| Submitted title was "The Most Popular Online Textbook Platform".
| Since people are disputing that, we've changed that to the HTML
| doc title now.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The content is good, but the UI is not. Clicking through to the
| original pages this stuff was published to in the cases that I've
| tried has resulted in far better pages.
|
| The purpose of this site is confusing - it seems to divide larger
| works into smaller units that you have to browse online. The
| publishers' pages just offer downloads in your preferred format
| above a toc linked to a web version of each individual section; I
| don't know how you could ask for more.
|
| Compare:
| https://workforce.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Food_Production...
|
| to: https://opentextbc.ca/basickitchenandfoodservicemanagement/
|
| -----
|
| edited to change the opentextbc.ca link to the right book because
| _libretexts.org linked to the wrong one._
| modethirteen wrote:
| For what its worth, the libretexts.org library subdomains run
| on a SaaS-knowledgebase platform called NICE CXone Expert
| (https://www.nice.com/products/digital-self-
| service/knowledge...).
|
| Some of you folks might remember an OSS wiki application called
| MindTouch (during the mid to late aughts) that later pivoted
| into a SaaS company. This is the same hosted software running
| the LibreTexts libraries, as the company and all assets were
| acquired by NICE. The LibreTexts team out of UC Davis built
| significant customizations on top of the existing base
| platform, which includes many custom user interface components.
| That being said, as the years went by, the software was
| repositioned and sold as a knowledge base for customer support
| teams and call centers, so this library-like information
| architecture is more or less layered on top of software that is
| specialized for a different use case.
|
| Disclaimer: I was formerly a lead engineer and director for
| MindTouch, Inc.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Now, combine this with wikibooks + project Gutemberg + new works
| that will enter public domain + a few decades... makes me hopeful
| of the future.
| throway453sde wrote:
| "ligen.is" is all you need for textbook
| [deleted]
| kgarten wrote:
| Love the mission and effort ... yet the first book I tried to
| look at in pdf format gave me a 404
|
| https://batch.libretexts.org/print/Finished/eng-46560/Full.p...
|
| From the link below, full pdf:
| https://eng.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Computer_Science/Appl...
| saboot wrote:
| I looked up several, most were unfinished, many just a table of
| contents.
| awinter-py wrote:
| feels like a 'platform' that should be a file format. their
| github seems to just have a kube cluster and some specializations
| to binder (jupyter server) and ckeditor (rich text), plus an
| account management tool called conductor.
|
| fwiw if someone were ever trying to launch a social network on
| the back of jupyter 2022 would be the time. nascent GAN art
| movement seems to be a jupyter swap movement at this point.
| antics9 wrote:
| There's also OpenStax which was featured on Red Hat.
|
| https://openstax.org/
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| OpenStax is great! Solid material for anyone wanting to pick up
| the basics
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| I think the most popular online textbook platform by far is
| Libgen ;)
| tyingq wrote:
| I would guess Library Genesis is the most popular online textbook
| platform. For somewhat related reasons.
| sodality2 wrote:
| I'd prefer to support those making open access textbooks,
| though; making textbooks open access is certainly necessary but
| I would rather help out those who believe in that cause by
| writing them, given the choice. We actually use open access
| textbooks in our high school and it's preferable to hunting
| down a PDF and sharing it with all the other students
| gnicholas wrote:
| The LibreTexts interface is a bit confusing, and IMO there are
| too many buttons on the screen at a time. For example, when
| you're reading a textbook, there's a nav bar above the chapter
| title, and it has various buttons. Is this nav bar helpful? Sure,
| but it's not necessary.
|
| Just above that bar is an even taller full-width bar with a "How
| can we help you?" text field and sign in buttons/fields on the
| right. This is definitely not necessary. The sign in fields could
| be reduced to a button ("sign in") and the help field could be a
| question mark inside a circle. They could live on the bar with
| the nav elements.
|
| Above this second bar is another full-width bar that is more than
| double the height of the previous one. It has the LT logo and
| diagonally above this it has the logo of the discipline you're
| currently viewing. IMO these logos should be side-by-side so the
| bar doesn't have to be as tall.
|
| People don't need all these buttons and bars when they're trying
| to read a textbook. IMO a minimalist layout would be more
| conducive to focused reading.
|
| One unique feature that LibreTexts offers is the BeeLine Reader
| text enhancement functionality (accessible from the Readability
| button in the upper right or the readability button in the side
| bar on the left). I launched this startup on HN in 2013 and
| LibreTexts was one of our first paid licensees. Through this
| partnership, the millions of students who use LibreTexts have
| access to our technology for free.
| jimhefferon wrote:
| Another source is the American Institute of Mathematics,
| https://aimath.org/textbooks/
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(page generated 2022-01-17 23:00 UTC)