LibreTexts – Free The Textbook | Hacker News Reader

LibreTexts – Free The Textbook

libretexts.org

173 pointsmarcodiego19 comments

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/

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edited to change the opentextbc.ca link to the right book because libretexts.org linked to the wrong one.

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.

How do I get a pdf out for my Sony A4 ereader ? Libgen?

For libretexts, a pdf can be generated then added to most ereaders.

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.

I would guess Library Genesis is the most popular online textbook platform. For somewhat related reasons.

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

I'd prefer everyone keeps doing what they were doing

There's also OpenStax which was featured on Red Hat.

https://openstax.org/

OpenStax is great! Solid material for anyone wanting to pick up the basics

Another source is the American Institute of Mathematics, https://aimath.org/textbooks/

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...

I looked up several, most were unfinished, many just a table of contents.

I think the most popular online textbook platform by far is Libgen ;)

Now, combine this with wikibooks + project Gutemberg + new works that will enter public domain + a few decades... makes me hopeful of the future.

Submitted title was "The Most Popular Online Textbook Platform". Since people are disputing that, we've changed that to the HTML doc title now.

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.

I prefer to use library genesis. No nonsense PDFs of entire books.

"ligen.is" is all you need for textbook

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