Some of you looked briefly at eLangdell and dismissed it as an e-book project...
“I don’t even have an e-reader?,” “Students can’t highlight/make notes in e-books,” “I just like print,” and “What will I do with all of that office shelf space without real books with which to fill it?” Right?
The misconception is mostly our own doing. Even the “e + Product” naming formula may have led you to believe that only techies with an extra $500 to spend on a newfangled device every other fiscal quarter (see: not normal tuition-paying law students) can use eLangdell.
There’s more to eLangdell than the “e.”
Just last week I added PDF, MS Word, and links to cheap print versions to complement the e-book versions of Christian Turner’s Land Use casebook, so I can authoritatively say: the idea that eLangdell is purely an e-book project is a misconception.
Now, I understand multiple options actually make your life more confusing if you don’t know what they mean or how to use them. And because no other publisher has ever offered this sort of flexibility, you’ve never been presented with the options eLangdell gives you.
So let’s play choose your own adventure.
a) “I want to use the equivalent of a static, print book in free, electronic form.”
- You should use the free PDF version. There is static page numbering and plenty of room in the margins for note taking, should you print.
b) “I want a real book I can hold in my hands and put on my shelves.”
- You should use the Lulu.com cheap print versions. Follow the hardcover/paperback links from eLangdell to Lulu.com where we’ve posted exact replicas of the PDFs as paper books at no markup cost to you. That’s $13.63, from which we do not take a cut, for a 500+ page casebook. Not bad.
- A combination of cheap print and the above PDF version of a book is really all you need if you’re assigning the book to law students, as is.
c) “I want to read eLangdell content on an e-reader for free.”
- “I have an iPad or almost any non-Kindle device.”
- You should use the free ePub version.
- “I have a Kindle.”
- You should use the free Mobi version.
d) “I want to edit eLangdell content to match my way of teaching.”
- You should use the free MS Word version. Download the Word file, edit as much or as little as you like, and re-distribute your edited file to your students in any format you choose.
e) The end, adventure over.
- Congratulations! You adopted eLangdell content. You have flexibility to easily edit your teaching material. You saved your students over $100 on a book. Your students love you. You win at law school.
If you’re wondering, the Creative Commons license we’ve attached to all of our eLangdell content permits you to do almost anything you want with eLangdell content, as long as it’s for non-commercial use.
So, eLangdell is not an e-book project. It’s an open education project.
Have a look around eLangdell and you’ll see that we have multiple electronic versions and links to cheap print versions on as many of our books as we can. Subscribe to the eLangdell mailing list to get an email each time we post a new title (not to play spoiler, but a full Contracts casebook is getting very close to completion).
And by all means, get in touch with us if you have any questions.