The series was originally developed in the 1930s by Daniel Schaum (November 13, 1913 – August 22, 2008), son of eastern European immigrants.
[2] Titles are continually revised to reflect current educational standards in their fields, including updates with new information, additional examples, use of new technology (calculators and computers), and so forth.
Originally designed for college-level students as a supplement to standard course textbooks, each chapter of a typical Outline begins with only a terse explanation of relevant topics, followed by many fully worked examples to illustrate common problem-solving techniques, and ends with a set of further exercises where usually only brief answers are given and not full solutions.
These typically feature the same explanatory material as their full-size counterparts, sometimes edited to omit advanced topics, but contain greatly reduced sets of worked examples and usually lack any supplementary exercises.
They are a staple[citation needed] in the educational sections of retail bookstores, where books on subjects such as chemistry and calculus may be found.