theorywatch

I’ve been silently fuming about the increasing tendency of new books in our field to be so pricey that even I as a faculty member have to think twice about buying them, let alone urging students to buy them (yes, I mean you, Libraries Unlimited, Chandos Publishing, and Scarecrow, with the $45-$75 price tags for all those 300 pages-or-less paperbacks on topics that will date in six months or less!)

So I was totally delighted this month to see Marti Hearst’s brilliant new book from Cambridge University Press, Search User Interfaces, not only published at a very affordable $50 (and available right now at Amazon at an even more affordable $40) for over 400 pages in hardcover, but made available free online.

Thank you, thank you, Professor Hearst! I’m ordering my copy right now!