Last week, I posted to Kairosnews about Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, a new open access writing textbook. This has been a long time coming. Pavel Zemliansky and I have discussed it for a few years now. Technology and other opportunities have finally made such a project possible.

And maybe now the time is right. Textbooks are a hidden cost that impact how much students can pay for tuition. It's doubtful that the current economic crisis will end anytime soon. If higher education could reduce textbook outlays by students, some of that money could be as a savings for the student to reduce the overall cost of education, and some of it in tuition increase. It's a matter of economics. Is the commercial textbook industry the most economical method of providing textbooks for students? Doesn't seem like it to me.