Educational materials are an increasing barrier to learning for the eager student. Retail prices of textbooks have risen at rates far greater than inflation for more than 2 decades (Pioneer Institute | Problem: Overpriced Textbooks, Solution: Opensource Material) and these increases have pushed the affordability of proper learning materials out of reach for many students. As one part of its larger educational mission in our local community, the Wendl Foundation seeks to help alleviate these barriers through the authoring and free distribution of high-caliber academic textbooks. 

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Wendl Foundation’s first free textbook “Conduction and Convection Heat Transfer” published in 2012. Distributed from various sources, including ResearchGate, the book (see above) has been used in engineering and physics classrooms for the past decade and has received glowing testimonials. As with many offerings in the growing open-source culture, this book has been released under a Creative Commons copyright license, which allows anyone (especially students) to download and use it for free. While not able to compete with larger projects like OpenStax in terms of the sheer numbers of free books offered, the Foundation is proud of a somewhat different distinction that is extremely uncommon among free books: Conduction and Convection has actually been used as a scientific reference in research work. According to Google Scholar, it has been cited by more than a dozen research papers and graduate theses.

The Wendl Foundation will be continuing its efforts in the distribution of high quality educational material useful to both students and private educational institutions. This benevolent activity is a logical extension of its broader mission of improving quality of life through education and other forms of personal development consistent with the dignity of the human person.