This idea here seems to be that the educational institutions will create the textbooks, using federal grant money, and possibly the books stores will provide the digital and printer services. Might be some role for the libraries as well. – Editors

[WASHINGTON, DC] [November 14, 2013] – U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Al Franken (D-MN) today introduced legislation designed to help students manage costs by making high quality textbooks easily accessible to students, professors and the public for free.  This bill, known as the Affordable College Textbook Act, would create a competitive grant program for institutions of higher education, working with professors and other organizations, [emphasis added] to create and expand the use of textbooks that can be made available online and licensed under terms that grant the public the right to freely access, customize and distribute the material, also known as “open textbooks”.

http://www.durbin.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=26d6b011-b4b3-4fa1-9fea-8b2706026943

Bill Summary & Status 113th Congress (2013 – 2014) S.1704

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d113:1704:./list/bss/d113SN.lst::