Students and Teachers Downloaded More Than 700,000 Free E-book Pages Covering Business Subjects Last Year

Wildwood, FL (PRWeb) January 17, 2007 -- Seven free e-books explaining basic Accounting, Mathematics, Economics, Excel and Statistics are on the Internet and students, teachers, and professionals have been downloading their pages in ever increasing numbers. Last year over 700,000 pages were downloaded. Overview of the Accounting Cycle led the way with about 20,000 pages. Because many teachers download one copy to be photocopied for their classes, the actual number of pages studied by students was substantially larger.

The process began when Walter Antoniotti, President of 21st Century Learning Products, wanted to see if paper versions of the Quick Notes Learning System textbook series would sell faster if free e-book versions were available on the Internet. This was done and while sales did not increase, Google ad revenue made the idea profitable.

One book, Economics, was made more interesting by the addition of over 100 Internet links to interesting economics sites. This free e-book covers both macro and microeconomics and can be viewed at the Economics Internet Library, a resource developed to support the paper version of the book. This library has become more popular because so much good current economics audio/video material has recently been put on the Internet.

The Statistics Internet Library has been the most popular of the company's twenty-seven free libraries with almost fourteen thousand visitors seeking information from it during November. From this library users may access the e-book Statistics. It was dedicated to Dr. Paul R. Gawthrop, author Walter Antoniotti's Marietta College Statistics teacher, because "Paul's outstanding Statistics Lab Manual inspired me to write the textbooks of the Quick Notes series." In addition, the Statistics Internet library has help for those having trouble with difficult concepts, other free Internet Statistics textbooks, advanced topics, and other material one would expect to be in a free library designed to help those interested in learning statistics.

The Excel Statistics Lab Manual is the most unique e-book because it was written entirely in a Microsoft Excel workbook. Users click on a link and their Excel software loads the manual from the Internet. Column A contains problems from the Statistics e-book and directions for using Excel to derive the statistics needed to analyze the problems. Data sets are in column B. Users follow the directions and Excel generates statistics which the user must then interpret. "That's the tough part," says Walter though a simple click leads to a replica of the problem sheet with everything completed including the author's interpretation.

The Financial Accounting e-book has had the most downloaded pages. Walter Antoniotti states that "Learning debits and credits lends itself to the concise nature of The Quick Notes Learning System." Information covered by a traditional twenty-page accounting textbook chapter has been outlined on two adjoining pages. Many users find this concise format appropriate for their learning style. In addition, traditional accounting texts only give a key answer and when a student gets stuck, they usually wait until the next class. With Quick Notes Financial Accounting, users click to a photocopy of the problem page which now includes a complete solution. The Accounting book was dedicated to Walter's Marietta College accounting teacher Mary Steers. "Mary was a single mom with Multiple Scleroses. She inspires me to this day."

Visitation to the
Free Internet Libraries increased to almost 50,000 during November. One reason is bloggers have been recommending the libraries. On a recent day StumbleUpon.com sent a few visitors and within four days, five hundred and twenty-eight StumbleUpon members visited. "We're getting more visitors from the socially oriented MySpace.com blog as their members age and become more interested in our education/career related material. In addition, searching Google using the search terms accounting help or free stuff accounting resulted in the Accounting Internet Library coming up first. Doing the same thing for statistics and economics resulted in each receiving a top three ranking. Finally, links to the libraries are found at many interesting sites. The Sabin Parish School District in Louisiana has an Excel page that links to the Excel Library and Indianeconomy.org links to the Economics Library and the Free Business Textbooks Library. Almost forty percent of the visitors have come from foreign countries with Canada leading the way with 5.1% followed by India with 4.7%.

Walter Antoniotti believes education and training are a continuing process and these free Internet libraries and e-books will help many improve their learning skills and competitiveness.

Contact Walter G. Antoniotti
President, 21st Century Learning Products
501 Robin Lane
Wildwood, FL 34785
Phone: 352-330-0927
"mailto:antonw@ix.netcom.com"
http://www.businessbookmall.com/

21st Century Learning Products publishes the Quick Notes Learning System Series, consisting of concise, inexpensive, business subject outlines to help people learn difficult concepts. The entire series is free for individual users on the Internet.

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