UMN Libraries have unpublished 25 republished textbooks

The University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing Services has unpublished 25 open textbooks we republished between 2013 and 2016. These textbooks were originally released under a Creative Commons license ~2010 by a publisher that has requested to remain anonymous. The textbooks below were unpublished on December 31, 2024. 

While we are unpublishing these versions of the textbooks the content will still be available through other versions. The list below includes alternative versions that may be appropriate for use in courses.

Why unpublish these textbooks?

1. These books are old. Many of them were originally published in 2010 making the content well over 10 years old. While we know many other library and university publishers reused the content in these books to make new versions, the text of the UMN-adapted versions have not been updated at all (besides the images).

2. These books were not written by UMN-affiliated authors. University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing is not the author, but we’re also not in contact with the original authors. That means that as issues arise with the books, and as they get more out of date, we don’t have anyone who can field questions or complaints or update the content. There are many, many broken links and the books also use outdated language for a lot of topics, such as race, sexuality and gender. 

3. There are costs associated with hosting these textbooks. Since these books were not written by UMN-affiliated authors, and there are now a large number of alternative versions available, it makes sense to unpublish these versions.

4. There are some copyright and licensing issues with these books. Based on some idiosyncrasies with the specific version of the CC license they were shared under, we removed attribution from the books at the original publisher's request. Given this history, we prefer not to update these editions. 

Are you interested in finding other open textbooks to use in your courses? Visit the Open Textbook Library!