Patent ID: 7174311

Claim:
A method for eliminating the physical carrying of textbooks by a user to perform homework assignments at a location remote from the user's school in which each user operates a computer system connected to a communication link to remotely retrieve discreet data units from one of the plurality of textbook electronic publications stored on a central computer system via a communication link connected therebetween comprising the steps of: (a.) establishing a list of textbooks for each user for a predetermined academic period; (b.) establishing by a school or school authorized entity a library database comprised of a plurality of textbook electronic publications including the textbooks contained in the list of textbooks in a central computer which together make up the textbooks used in teaching a school curriculum, each of said textbook electronic publications comprised of a plurality of discrete textbook data units generally containing subject matter not found in the others of said textbook electronic publications; (c.) establishing a user profile database in said central computer for storing a plurality of individual user profiles, each user profile associated with a list of at least one target textbook electronic publication which corresponds to the textbooks the user will use during said predetermined academic period selected from said plurality of textbook electronic publications and through which the user is provided direct with non-fee paying, limited selective access to the target textbook electronic publications within said library database; (d.) modifying said list of target textbook electronic publications corresponding to any changes made to the user profile during said academic period; (e.) requesting one or more desired textbook data units from one of said target electronic publications without the direct payment of a fee; (f.) determining the validity of the user's request for data units from said textbook electronic publication by comparing the request with information stored in the corresponding individual user profile including said target textbook electronic publication profile database and, if there is a match, the request is a valid request; (g.) transmitting said desired textbook data units upon determining the validity of the user's request, from said central computer system to a user computer system operated by said user via a communication link connected therebetween; and (h.) displaying said desired textbook data units on a display device of said user computer system for viewing by said user, wherein said displaying step is performed in response to said transmitting of said desired textbook data units from said central computer system to said user computer system.