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I would say that minimally you would have to supply a list of books you
consider to be consistent with your course. However, I don't know that this
is enough. I really believe that a decent text book can be a great help to
students who will take the time and EFFORT to read it. How many of us feel
that their course (as normally given) is equivalent to a good text book in
depth, breadth, logical presentation, number of applications, number of
examples, supplementary information (e.g. biographical sketches), etc. I
sure don't. I rely on the text book to provide much of this--and inform my
class of this. I would be afraid that your focus on the class notes would
be taken by many (most) students as 'the notes are all I need to worry
about'. While encouraging outside reading from a variety of books is
laudable, the simple fact is that it is hard as hell to get students to read
the $100+ book that most of us make them buy. You can't talk to students
and they can't talk to each other about something in 'their' book since
there is no common book. I'm also not sure that the cost of books is
really any higher a percentage of their educational costs today than they
were 30 years ago--anyone with data on that?