Harvard University Press on Scribd

This sounds like a great move:

It’s a recession. Save the $200,000 you were going to spend on that Harvard education and check out some of the books Harvard University Press is selling on Scribd starting today.

It's so obviously right: saving trees, and making academic materials more readily available, thus boosting the recognition achieved by the authors - exactly what they want. Plus readers can buy the books much more cheaply, allowing many more people to access rigorous if rather specialist knowledge.

Or maybe not: a quick look through the titles shows prices ranging from mid-teens up to $45. Come on, people, these are *electrons*: they are cheap. The whole point is to use this fact to spread knowledge, reputation and joy more widely.

When will they (HUP) learn?

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