A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education points out that many textbook publishers are offering professors the ability to modify textbooks. That is, professors can remove unnecessary elements (chapters) and add other pieces in. This services has been around for some time, but was seldom used.
Well Create from McGraw-Hill allows professors to create electronic textbooks that mix-and-match from other McGraw-Hill books. The many advantages include, a cheap book (The Chronicle example jumped from $6 for an electronic copy to $17 for a printed copy), decreasing information overload by reducing unnecessary chapters, tayloring the book to meet the needs of the particular class, etc…
The other interesting part of the article describes how professors will need to navigate various publisher websites to create such content. All I know is that we really do live in interesting times!
The Information Activist Librarian 