It wasn’t so long ago that I was a college student, so when I read about ways that colleges are trying to overcome the woes of unwieldy (and often drab) textbooks, the student in me perks up. According to the Chronicle, Temple University is about to begin a second round of pilot testing digital alternatives to the traditional textbook:

The pilot project gave 11 faculty members $1,000 each to create a digital alternative to a traditional textbook. To enliven their students’ reading, the instructors pulled together primary-source documents and material culled from library archives. […] The Temple program mirrors a similar effort announced at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in December.

I don’t remember the details of a single textbook that I used as an undergrad, but I do remember the hand-curated course packets that a small handful of my profs put together. Not only do these leverage library resources (and with digitization, special collections), but they add a personal touch to instruction, as if to say, “What we read and discuss in this class is important to me so I’ve taken the time to pull this material together for you.”

You can find more info on the project at Temple’s website.

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