The University of Georgia (UGA) Educational Resources department has released a number of iBooks on a variety of horse health topics which are available for owners and caretakers to view and download for free.

For more than 40 years, Educational Resources was a small department that supported the veterinary college’s educational focus by creating graphs, photographs, and simple illustrations for the veterinary faculty to use in publications, textbook chapters, and presentations. However, the department’s role grew substantially when it entered the world of electronic media three years ago. This move was facilitated by iBooks Author, a free program from Apple that allows people to create interactive books called iBooks. At the same time, the department developed a one-year, post-graduate program that introduces newly graduated medical illustrators to veterinary education. The six full-time staff members and graduate students in Educational Resources soon recognized that iBooks interactivity was an ideal way to deliver their realistic illustrations, animations, 3-D models, video segments, photographs, and audio tracks to today’s students, recent graduates, and the animal owning public.

The team’s ability to create such learning tools opened doors for ideas and topics to teach and discuss with students. Initially, Educational Resources approached the question of “what to address” by asking faculty members to identify concepts their students seemed to struggle with. Then, they asked veterinary students, interns, and residents which concepts they struggled to recall weeks, months, and years after learning them. The topic list started to grow and included concepts such as equine tarsal abnormalities, equine nasogastric intubation and upper airway endoscopy, cerebrospinal fluid collection, the equine paranasal sinuses, and others related to a wide variety of veterinary topics.

Educational Resources decided to make their iBooks freely available to anyone with an iPhone, iPad, or Mac laptop. To date, more than 32,000 copies have been downloaded worldwide, with 24,000 in the U.S. and Canada, but many also in countries like Ireland, Slovenia, Brazil, and Peru. Download any of the iBooks for free at tinyurl.com/yd3ug5co