Good news for students that like reading digital textbooks. Sixty new publishers have added more than 35,000 new digital textbooks and online course tools to VitalSource’s Bookshelf platform, the company that powers digital educational materials for the Ingram Content Group.

New publishers to join the program include university presses and those that specialize in medical, scientific, law and  religion. These publishers join Cengage Learning, Elsevier, Wiley, McGraw-Hill, and more than 200 other publishers that distribute digital books through VitalSource. VitalSource has 2.7 million registered users on 6,000 universities around the globe.

Jed Lyons, president/CEO of Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, one of the new partners, commented, “As institutions around the world continue to move to digital learning environments, working with Ingram’s VitalSource platform gives us the tools to easily expand the reach of our titles to the broader education communityAs more schools reshape and enhance their curriculums for today’s student with digital content and technology from Vital Source, more Rowman & Littlefield titles will be available to those that want them.”

Flat World Knowledge, a company that has built itself on the idea that everyone should have access to textbooks, is going to start charging for all of its content.

As of January 1, 2013, the site, which currently offers online content for free, will charge for all of the digital textbook content that it distributes. According to the company the free format had become “a barrier” to long-term growth. Here is more from the blog:

…we will no longer be providing students with free access to our textbooks. Yes, the free Web format is going away, but our mission to provide high quality course materials at affordable prices remains as strong as ever. Students can read a complete online textbook with our Study Pass product, which includes note-taking, highlighting and study aids, for only $19.95. Our prices remain significantly lower than the $100+ that students are used to paying for other commercial textbooks. Read more