3.1: Definitions - Books, Remixes, and TextMaps
Each of the libraries is organized into "bookshelves" (Campus Bookshelf, Bookshelf, Anicllary Materials, etc). It is useful to imagine you are on a campus with many library building, and in each building are just a few bookshelves. On those shelves, we have different types of resources. For our analogy, we often refer to these resources as "books." However, these resources may be called textbooks, textmaps, or courses depending on where they are and what the collection really should be used for.
Within the Campus Bookshelf will be Remixes of other materials from other shelves, including faculty-written materials such as syllabi, schedules, links to ADAPT homework, or even material from other libraries (for instance, a bit of statistics from the stats library within an economics book). These are often referred to as Courses or Course Shells but have the same structure as a book on a bookshelf. Below you can see a few books from a given institution, which are labeled with the course name.
As discussed earlier discussing bookshelves , these courses can contain another unit which consists of the "textbook" for the course.
There are three general classes of texts or textbooks found in the LibreTexts: "Textbooks, "Remixes" and "Textmaps".
- Textbooks are texts that are original content that have integrated content into our library and are identified by "Book:" in their titles.
- Remixes are texts are created from existing OER content although often has topical or extensive editing by the remixing team to customize the text for the needs of an instructor or team of instructors. Constructing Remixes on the LibreTexts platform is facilitated by the OER Remixer tool. The title of the Remix often starts with the campus acronym (e.g., the Chemistry 110A remix at the University of California is "UCD: Chem 110A Introductory Quantum Mechanics") and often will be within a Course Shell as discussed above.
- Textmaps are specialized remixes that are constructed to follow the organization of existing commercial textbooks. Textmaps facilitate adoption by faculty that are unable to switch from a commercial textbook to an OER alternative; these texts are identified by "Map:" in their titles.
There was a court case in 1980 where the complaint was dismissed because, although the structure was the same, the "expression" i.e. writing was distinct. The more recent case from late 2018 says structure is part of the overall picture, and should be considered. It may be copyrightable if it were super creative, but not if it was "indispensable or standard" for the subject matter (494 F. Supp. 218). More from the case: "Similarities in chapter arrangement or structure matter less than the expressive content contain therein. Cf. Morrison v. Solomons, 494 F.Supp. 218, 225 (S.D.N.Y. 1980) (“The significant question is not whether titles of subchapters and chapters are the same but rather whether the explanation or treatment of the subject matter within them is substantially similar.”)."