I’ve written several times about Maran Illustrated and their online eBooks including the following posts. I started with…Maran Illustrated Yoga eBook available online for FREE!. I then added updates:

I’m happy to report that they haven’t come to their senses (LOL) and stopped giving away their books but are continuing to expand and improve their offerings!

Here is a note that I rec’d from Rob Maran followed by my own observations:

‘Hi Jeff,

Hope all is well with you.

I thought you might be interested to know we have made some substantial new offerings available via the electronic paper route….

First we are using a new “Electronic Paper Provider”, not sure if I’m the first to coin this term :)

We have switched EPPs to scribd which uses a simpler and more efficient interface particularly with those with smaller screen sizes. It also has some cool live embeddable options which websites (and bloggers) can use to incorporate our content directly onto their site (examples)

We have created over 200 ebook products, including full books, chapters, topics and combined topics. They can all be accessed by

We have also added some brand new content including topics on Excel, Access, Microsoft Office and others.

Finally, we have created a new resource, “Algebra Boot Camp”, which is located here: http://www.algebrabootcamp.com it contains our entire algebra book broken down by chapter along with downloadable questions and answers from the back of each chapter.

I hope you take a look at our ebooks. I would be very interested in your feedback.

Cheers,

Rob’

I did take a look and again was impressed! Let me point out some of the things I noticed.

The two methods offer very different ways to look at the available resources. Some will prefer the more traditional Website while some will prefer the newer Scribd format (check out the About and FAQs on Scribd)

At the “Maran Illustrated Website” I found links to the following:

At The Maran Illustrated Kitchen Sink (and more!) on Scribd.com I found the following features:

  • Note that the links below the royal blue bar (left of and below the family picture) apply to Maran Illustrated. The ones on the bar and at the top apply to the entire Scribd.com site.
  • The Maran ‘group’ Scribd.com page is Searchable.
  • Both ‘Browse Group‘ on the left applies to the Maran’s books (and not to all of Scribd.com) and you can browse by categories (visitors can comment on each book):

At first impression I preferred the ‘old school’ Webpage but the Scribd.com version has grown on me!

Would you agree with me that the Maran family is being very generous to provide all of these resources to the public for free?