Pressbooks is web-based book production software used by authors and educational institutions around the world to create textbooks, monographs, syllabi, white papers, and more. The platform is designed to make creating or adapting existing content easier, with an online editing interface similar to using WordPress CMS that can output multiple formats including:
- Website
- EPUB and MOBI ebooks
- print PDF
The Idaho State Board of Education established a Pressbooks platform for Idaho universities to increase open publishing as one means of improving access and affordability in higher education. University of Idaho’s institutional Pressbooks instance is supported by the Library’s Digital Scholarship and Open Strategies unit.
The Library supports initiatives in Open Access and Open Education to make an impact across campus and the world, helping to reduce the costs and barriers associated with accessing educational materials and research. These initiatives benefit Vandals as well as the greater Idaho, national, and international scholarly communities.
Published works can be browsed in our U of I Pressbooks Catalog. You can learn more about the possibilities in our short introduction “Create, Clone, or Adapt your own Pressbook”, the Pressbooks User Guide, or the CUNY Pressbooks Guide (we hope to establish a similar local guide soon!).
Openly licensed textbooks and OER are powerful tools for education, allowing users to build upon each other’s work. With Pressbooks you can adapt an existing textbook to tailor for your specific course, add interactive content, or create new resources.
To get started using Pressbooks at U of I to publish your work or adapt an existing OER, please contact Marco Seiferle-Valencia marcosv@uidaho.edu.