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Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Interactive textbooks

Taylor & Francis launches Routledge Interactive

The Bookseller  shares the interesting tidbit that academic publisher Taylor & Francis is going interactive.

Well, I found it interesting, because Routledge published a book of mine once, a gossipy account of medicine on whaleships in south seas in the mid-nineteenth century. And they have recently brought out a digital version.

It's called Rough MedicineIt was a fun book to write, and the interior design was outstanding.

My biggest problem with it was that they very firmly deleted my rousing chapter on medicine on pirate ships.  The editors said it didn't fit the picture of medicine on whaleships, and I guess they were right.  Though the logic didn't stand up when they changed the subtitle from "Whaling Surgeons in South Seas" to "Surgeons at sea in the Age of Sail." 

And their reasoning certainly looked limp when they insisted on a cover image that shows a famous incident where a bloke (who eventually became Lord Mayor of London) being saved by a naval officer lancing a shark.

But, as I said, the interior design is gorgeous. And the rest of the book is rousing enough, with amputations and ad hoc medicine a-plenty.  But an INTERACTIVE digital version of medicine at sea?

The imagination boggles.

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