If you are a subscriber to CourseSmart, a provider of e-textbooks  (for more information about CourseSmart and other digital textbook publishers, see High textbook prices + Web 2.0 leads to alternative publishing models), you will be happy to know that books from the service are now available on the Iphone/Ipod Touch. Digital editions of textbooks been have been getting a boost from Amazon’s Kindle, but books from CourseSmart are not currently available for the device.  There are Iphone apps for use with Amazon’s Kindle store and with Barnes and Nobles e-books store, but textbook content had been missing. CourseSmart  is a welcome addition to the expanding universe of texts available on the Iphone.

You can read more about CourseSmart and the Iphone in “Textbooks Offered for iPod, iPhones” in the August 10 edition  of the Wall Street Journal (page B7). If you browse to the technology section of the Wall Street Journal Online, you will see a message that the article is only available to subscribers. However, members of the Poly community can read articles from the Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other newspapers by logging on with your Poly id number to the library’s ProQuest database.  (Also, curiously, there is currently much content available from the WSJ on the free Iphone app, including this article, that are not currently available free of charge on the website. That will probably change soon.)