The catalogue

What this house publishes in this language, and on what conditions a book gets in.

Mathematics1

Arithmetic, numbers, measurement and geometry: every notion set out in its order, the exercises that settle it, and their worked answers.

MathematicsFractionsThe LibraryMathematicsFractionsA complete manual on fractions: what a fraction measures, how it is read, how it is placed on a number line, how it is compared, how it is added, and how a part of a quantity is taken from it. Every chapter carries its exercises, and every exercise its reasoned answer.14 chapters · ≈ 89 estimated pages in print
Free of charge

Reading and writing1

Learning to read and write a language you already speak: from letters to continuous prose, with the exercises of each stage and their answers.

Reading and writingConjugating French Without HesitatingA practice workbook for French conjugation, made of short sets of exercises and their full worked answers. The exercises are in French, because French verb forms are what the book trains; every explanation is in English. Four tenses of the indicative, the verbs used most often, and enough repetition for the forms to come by themselves. Conjugation belongs to the French language and not to any one country: this workbook holds wherever that language is written.17 chapters · ≈ 105 estimated pages in print
Free of charge

Natural sciences1

Living things, matter, the Earth and the sky: what is known, how it came to be known, and experiments that need no laboratory.

Natural sciencesWater and the WeatherA complete course on the water cycle and on the weather: changes of state, invisible vapour, clouds, precipitation, runoff, groundwater, rivers, drinking water, measuring instruments and how to read a forecast. The mechanisms set out here are universal; the chapter on tap water and the one on weather warnings take France as their example, and say so. Every chapter announces its objectives, works through its examples, and closes on a self-check with a full answer.17 chapters · ≈ 152 estimated pages in print
Free of charge

History1

The past and the way it is established: the facts, the sources that carry them, what is still argued over, and exercises on documents.

HistoryThe great periods of historyA book of tables and timelines about the division of time into five periods as it is taught in France: Prehistory, Antiquity, the Middle Ages, Modern Times and the Contemporary Era. It gives the landmark dates with their source, it presents this division as a convention and never as a universal truth, and it shows how an object, a text or an excavation makes it possible to date what is being told.16 chapters · ≈ 94 estimated pages in print
Free of charge

What a book from this house is

Each volume is a complete textbook on one subject: the course in its own order, the exercises that go with it, the worked answers to those exercises, and the layout that makes all of it readable. Fifty pages at the very least, because below that a full progression does not hold together.

The content is under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence: reusable, translatable, printable, sellable even, on the single condition that ODERSA is credited. The editorial design stays with the association. The licence page draws the line precisely.

Every volume comes out in its own language, to read online, chapter by chapter. It carries its colophon, its verification date and its caveat about mistakes.

A dozen early volumes lined up on a shelf: calf bindings with raised bands, then limp vellum bindings with their titles written by hand. — Spines of bound volumes. The spine is what you see of a book once it is shelved: it is also what a file lacks, and it is why the catalogue of this house is drawn as a shelf.Credit

The vocabulary of this house

Seven words recur across this site. Here they are defined once, so that they do not come to mean something else elsewhere.

Book: A complete textbook, fifty pages at the very least, with its progression, its exercises and their worked answers. A shorter document is a worksheet, and it does not enter the catalogue.
Dedicated project: The people and the time assigned to one single book, from the first chapter to release. A project never works on two books at once.
Crossed checking: The full reading of a text by someone who did not write it. It is an obligation, for every language published, and it bears on substance before style.
Colophon: The making record printed in the book: who, when, with what, under which licence, and the caveat about mistakes. At the foot of every page on this site, the colophon says the same about the site itself.
Leaf: One page of the work. The foot of this site carries its rank and the total, both counted at build time: it is a book folio, applied to a website.
CC BY 4.0: The Creative Commons Attribution licence, version 4.0 international. It allows copying, translating, adapting and selling, on the condition that the author is credited. It is irrevocable.
Editorial design: The layout, the grid, the typography and the visual identity. It remains the property of ODERSA, all rights reserved, and it is the single exception to everything else being open here.

How a book enters the catalogue

Six gates, and each one can refuse. A book that fails at any of them does not appear.

The decision
The association opens one title, and only one. A subject already covered by a complete, openly licensed work is not opened.
The writing
The course, the exercises and the answers, by one hand, all the way to the end of the contents. Fifty pages at the very least.
The illustrations
Every image is openly licensed, its licence checked at its source page, and the image itself is looked at before it is adopted.
The crossed check
A full reading by somebody else, in every language. The reader works the exercises again.
The colophon
Who, when, with what, under which licence, plus the caveat about mistakes and the address for reporting them.
The deposit
One content file enters the repository, and the catalogue, the counters, the plan and the open data all rebuild themselves. Nobody copies a number by hand.

A filter axis only appears if it has something to separate: a shelf that holds a single book does not make a filter. The panel therefore rebuilds itself as the catalogue grows, and it never offers a sort that would sort nothing.

The official domain

Free, and no account

No data collected

Free to reuse