As for updates . . . .

["jesposito" <jesposito@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>If a publisher is worried that a 50 year old textbook would be
competition
for their current version, then they should probably worry about the
fact
that they haven't updated anything in 50 years.
JE:  Why, then, is anyone bothering to put the 11th edition of
Encyclopaedia Britannica online?  It's 90 years old.  Admittedly,
Britannica is Britannica and, hence, a document of historical interest,
but it is not being mounted as a historical artifact (of interest to a
handful of people) but as a ready-to-use online reference, available and
free to one and all.  This is atrocious.  Even if one puts aside the
blatant racism of some of the articles in the 11th, can you imagine a
schoolkid who doesn't know any better perusing an article on biology
written two generations before Watson and Crick?  This is irresponsible.

Joseph J. Esposito