About Soomo Publishing

Soomo is an independent publisher of new media for the college textbook market.

We are a small team of about twelve, all in love with learning and optimistic about the potential for web technologies to enable education. We are working closely with professors and students to create a next generation of learning resources. We want to provide powerful, memorable interactions that engage students, challenge the status quo, and do so for a lot less than the price of a textbook.

We believe learning matters. A lot. And that web technology offers a wide variety of ways to spark learning which we as a society are only beginning to understand.

We believe it is now possible to create resources that do what textbooks are intended to do, but do so at a much lower cost, online, in a more memorable and engaging way.

We believe the best new media resources will be created by small teams working side-by-side with teaching professors and real-life, inquiring students. And the best solutions will be web-native, not imitations of books.

Americans Governing is our first implementation of these philosophies. We started building in 2004 and have continued to refine and expand it each year. Americans Governing draws from documentaries, essays, primary documents, interviews, magazines, blogs, journals, campaign commercials and more to present a collection of interactions that leave students wanting to know more.

Comparing Governments presents detailed historic, demographic, cultural, political and economic information on Britain, France, Germany, Japan, India, the United States, Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Iran, China, South Africa, and the European Union. Drawing on statistical data, audio clips, documentaries, news articles, interactive maps, and more, this resource brings the world's governments vividly to life.

Between Nations provides an overview of some of history's most significant international relations events. This resource utilizes an array of material to illustrate and examine these events, including original interviews with professionals in the field, news articles, audio and video clips, primary documents, websites, and excerpts from CNN's award-winning "Cold War" series.

For more on our approach to learning and new media, take a look at these:

• Our paper from the 2005 APSA Teaching & Learning Conference
• Our slides from 2008 presentations on “Creating Effective Web Assignments”
• Or take a test drive and see the kind of stuff we produce first hand