The databases of school textbooks and the Web 2.0

Over the last few years, the databases of school textbooks have progressed both in quality and in quantity thanks to the implementation of new research tools such as digital libraries, electronic archives and other digital and printed resources. However, historians of textbook publication are faced with new challenges ranging from how to maintain portals in times of biting cutbacks in the financing of research, to how to live side-by-side with the big non-specialised digital libraries such as Google books or Open Content Alliance. The essay describes the current situation regarding research into textbook publication on the Web, and attempts to outline possible directions, with the objective of not only conserving and increasing textbook databases, but of exploiting to the utmost the resources present on the Web, which are currently too scattered and fragmented to be of any real use to research.