What is the Dolan Foundation?

The Dolan Foundation is a publishing company not unlike
other publishers, except in two fundamental areas. Just like
other publishers, we produce and publish materials for the
public. Where we are unique, however, does make for a
difference to our consumers. First, we
are a non-profit corporation. We are not structured to earn the
bulk of our income from sales, in fact most of our publications
will be available for free over the internet. And second, we
publish our textbooks in the public domain.

What is a copyright and what is the public domain?

When an author writes material he or she intends to make
available to the public, that author has the option to pursue
exclusive rights for its recreation and distribution. He or she
may choose to “copyright” their intellectual property.
Copyrights are a government granted monopoly protecting that
property, intended to encourage creativity.

Material in the public domain does not belong to anyone
because either the copyright has expired or because no
copyright had been pursued for that particular work. The
content of that material is freely available to the public. The
problem for authors writing material for the public domain is
that if their work is free, they cannot easily reap the reward for
their labor.

How do you make textbooks available for free?

There are several theories behind the high price of textbooks,
none of them are very convincing. The most widely accepted
argument is that the market for textbooks is too small, and that
to turn a worthwhile profit, textbooks have to be sold at a very
high price. The other component of textbook cost is the money
publishers spend advertising to teachers.

The Dolan Foundation spends no money advertising, which is
key to keeping costs down. We are also not structure to profit
from student purchases, and instead cover our expenses
through charitable donation. The reality of copyrighted
textbooks is that the system is protecting enormous profits. We pay for the content to remain free, other
publishers pay for the content to be theirs and theirs alone.

Why an Algebra textbook? Why not something else?

We chose an Algebra textbook for two reasons. First, the rules of Algebra have not changed in centuries. We can rely on their
being the same from semester to semester, and college to college.

Second, it is a course all college students in the State of
California have to complete. It seemed sensible to us to
actually publish something people could widely use.

Are future textbooks planned?

Yes, we plan to continue publishing indefinitely. We will
always be working on one project or another. If you have
suggestions, ideas, or have questions about our current project
please e-mail our Director of Public relations: Michell
Guerrero at mguerrero@dolanfoundation.org.

What else does the Dolan Foundation do?

Currently we are working on one textbook and bundled
supplements. In the future we plan on sponsoring public
lectures and the production of other open source educational
software.

Why should I donate?

The Dolan Foundation publishes college resources for free.
That does not mean they are always free to produce, however.
Creating academic textbooks, supplements, and software is a
cause worthy of consideration, and any contribution, large or
small, can have a monumental impact.