I’m a fan of the Hesperian Foundation, which publishes community-based healthcare books like Where There Is No Doctor. In addition to giving their books away at no or low cost, they’ve historically distributed gratis copies of their books in PDF format, chapter by chapter (example).
They’ve now set up a new online reading interface (vaguely similar to Google Books), but it’s Flash-based, and can’t be indexed via search engines. Is this an improvement?
Which of these online reading interfaces for print books do you like best?
- PDFs, chapter-by-chapter (CDC Pink Book)
- PDF, all-in-one (Little Brother)
- Flash-based ebrary interface (Where There Is No Doctor)
- HTML-based Internet Archive Bookreader (The Bird Book)
- Google Books reader (Potential consequences of climate variability and change)
- HTML, all-in-one (Little Brother)
(Update: fixed link)
I’d probably give the nod to PDF, all-in-one, as that seems to have the most flexibility for viewing on different platforms. But as a big Cory Doctorow fan, I’d be glad to read the book in any format!
Also, your last link should actually be HTML, all-in-one
Also, I see that the National Academies Press has now made all of their books freely available as PDFs on their web site. From the press release: