What do you want in a Textbook

I’ve been thinking a lot about textbooks lately. Do students really read/use them? What is the difference between a textbook and a reference book and what are the pros and cons of each in education? What about books designed for professionals rather than for teaching? They seem to be half way between a reference book and a textbook. And is larger always better or are shorter textbooks as useful as large ones? Ultimately it boils down to what is a great textbook like? I’m still working on questions and looking for answers.

Recently I have found links to a couple of free books. Or parts of books. For example, There is a new edition of Rob Miles (@robmiles) C# Yellow book text available. That’s a textbook designed from the ground up to be used in Rob’s courses at the University of Hull. No doubt the text and course fit like hand in glove.  From Microsoft  Press there is a second draft preview ebook of Charles Petzold’s upcoming Programming Windows Phone 7! Download the PDF here. Download the XPS here. And download the sample code here. )

This is a book designed for people who already know some programming, from what I can tell, but who are interested in learning programming for the Windows Phone. This preview has 6 chapters and about 256 pages. This compares to Rob Miles book which is complete at 197 pages. Of course I have copies of some textbooks that are 600+ pages as well.

I have this love/hate thing with large books though. For a novel I see value in part as volume. I read quickly so a 900 page novel that is well written and tells a good story is gold to me. A 200 page book is read and gone too quickly. On the other hand many a student sees a huge textbook (or any book some times) as intimidating, as too much to handle and as something to avoid. So I tend to favor shorter textbooks for classroom use.

Ah, but a shorter book can only cover so much material. What about stretch learning? I tend to think that a reference book is better for the “extra” stuff.  It’s too much to have students buy reference books or even to buy a classroom set. I like to have a couple of reference books on the shelf though. That allows me to occasionally point a student in a direction and get mostly out of there way. Sure it’s all there in the online documentation and some will make do with that. I guess I’m old fashioned but I don’t find online help or ebooks to be the same as a paper book.

So how do you see the textbook situation? Do you have textbooks you like and if so what makes them great? Do you like the huge books, short books or something in between? What works for you?