About Us

The Library of Math is an online math portal that has something to offer every math student, every math educator, every mathematician, and every math enthusiast around.

Math Educators. At the Library of Math we skillfully author subjects and topics  of mathematics. Behind the Library of Math is a comprehensive  database of mathematical information which is free for the public to browse. The Library of Math is dedicated to serving the world's need for mathematical education.

Math Enthusiasts. Our CafePress.com shop (Math Store) is designed especially for you. Here we offer a wide selection of custom math products (including t-shirts, stickers, mugs, magnets, posters -- and much more). The Math Store is the number one rated "math store" by Google and has well over ten thousand custom math products with hundreds of designs for every math enthusiast.

Founded By. The Library of Math was founded in 2001 by two math teachers from the University of Texas at Arlington while working on advanced degrees in mathematics. Since then they have gone on to write hundreds of math tutorials and design thousands of custom math products available to anyone wherever they live.

David A. Smith received his Master's Degree from the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) in 2000. He has taught mathematics at UTA since 1997 except for a two year break where he worked in the area of information technology learning about web technologies and pc/server architecture in general. He is certified as an Oracle database administrator and is a Microsoft Office User Specialist. David is an accomplished programmer in many web-related languages.

Who We Serve. The Library of Math has many math articles and math tutorials which help guide anyone who is doing and studying mathematics. We offer free online help for high school teachers and students, undergraduate instructors and students, and anyone wishing to refresh or further their mathematical ability. We do not take requests for working out solutions to problems but rather our help is in the form of math tutorials and math articles. Mathematics (and especially math education) is best done by reading and doing it, and not having someone do it for you.

David has taught undergraduate courses in Beginning Algebra, Intermediate Algebra, College Algebra, Trigonometry, Algebra & Trigonometry, Analytic Geometry, Pre-Calculus, Business Algebra, Business Calculus, Calculus I, Calculus III, Euclidean Geometry, and Number Theory. Math education is of great importance to David.

David's wife Sally is a frequent contributor to the Library of Math. She received her Masters Degree form UTA in 1996 and Ph.D. in 2001. She is an actuary and the author of the financial math topics on the Library of Math. She was the driving force behind the creation of the Math Store and many of the designs are her original creations. One of the earliest (and simplest) has gone on to be our most popular design, "Math Diva".

Math education drives much of the Library of Math's success. It's the very essence of what makes us better than other math-related web sites. We will continue to address the concerns of math education for decades to come. Our mission is to help as many people as we can with free online math.

Library of Math Fast Facts:

LibraryOfMath.com is a privately owned, profitable company based in Arlington, Texas and has been online since February 2005.

Approximately 50,000 web pages served each month and approximately 3,000 searches performed each month.

On average 15 new tutorials are added each month.

Approximately 15,200 custom math products are available from our CafePress shop (www.cafepress.com/mathstore).

Since March 2005 over five million page impressions.

Since January 2005 we have sold over 4,500 distinct custom math products.

Web Hierarchy of LOM. Except for our home page, www.libraryofmath.com consists of 19 subjects: About Mathematics, Analytic Geometry, Business Algebra, Business Calculus, Business Mathematics, Calculus, Calculus One, Calculus Three, College Algebra, Euclidean geometry, Financial Mathematics, Foundations of Geometry, Geometry, Group Theory, Number Theory, Precalculus One, Precalculus Two, Precalculus, and Trigonometry. Each subject page has a table of contents followed by many topics with their descriptions. Towards the end of each subject page are the collections covering categories such as homework, quizzes, reviews, and practice exams.   Each subject page also contains links to topic articles on each subject giving more in-depth information and help than just the actual mathematics. The topic pages on the Library of Math are written to give an introduction to a particular topic. Each definition, proposition, and example is clearly labeled; and many detailed explanations are given. Our aim is to be instructive and informative but not necessarily concise. Many examples are worked out in complete detail and sometimes multiple techniques are shown on the same example. Detailed proofs are given if they are in the scope of the subject and many proofs are motivated through examples.

How to use the LOM. Now that we understand the web hierarchy of the Library of Math, we can explain how to use it. If you are a math student, then simply choose your subject and then carefully search for your topic. The Library of Math is not written in a linear fashion as most textbooks are. You may need to go and read another topic before finishing the one you started. On each subject page the topics are organized into a collection of topics (just like chapters in a textbook), so use the table of contents at the top of the subject page to search for what you want. To help you decide which topic, you can read a brief summary before the list of links for the topics. If you do not know which math subject you are interested in, then you should try searching the Library of Math; just use the Search Form on the left side of each web page (below the Library of Math logo). You can get your own Library of Math logo here.

Professional Development. Document validation is a process of checking your documents against a formal Standard, such as those published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for HTML. Each page on the Library of Math is checked for quality assurance and is written in 100% valid HTML 4.01 Transitional code. At the end of every page this validity can be checked by using the link to the W3C Markup Validation Service. The Library of Math also uses Cascading Style Sheets to do most of its formatting; and the validity of every page can also be checked using the W3C CSS Validation Service at the bottom of every page. Both of these validation services are important to us for two main reasons. First they ensure our users that every page will display correctly in any browser that supports W3C and secondly to ensure our pages are searchable by all major search engines.

Mathematical Content. The mathematics on Library of Math is correct to the best of our knowledge. However we greatly appreciate your feedback and your help in keeping the integrity our web site extremely high. From time to time we do make mistakes and we acknowledge this; and we in no way assume that we are an authoritative figure in the world of mathematics.

Advertisements. All advertisements on the Library of Math come from two sources: Google and CafePress. Google AdSense provides contextual based ads which allow our users to navigate away from the Library of Math only if they choose to. Our search results are also generated by Google who continues to be the leading provider for the traffic that the Library of Math receives. The Library of Math also owns and operates its own CafePress Shop called the Math Store. Throughout the pages of the Library of Math you will see merchandise that you can buy from the Math Store. Currently the Math Store has over 10,000 custom math products that you can enjoy. Help spread your enthusiasm for mathematics by buying some gift items today! Math Store   

Last Updated: May 2, 2008.

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Cite this as:
About Us
Published by Library of Math -- Online math organized by subject into topics.
Written by Smith, David A.
http://www.libraryofmath.com/about-us.html