Should you be pedantic about the clerical errors you see in a reference book?

Kinda depends on who writes the stuff. I am also a distance learner (er, you know what I mean) and there are occasional errors in the materials. If it's written by the instructor, I will send an email only to them, but only if it makes a difference in terms of my understanding of the material. It nearly never does.

If the material was written by someone else, and it matters in terms of understanding the material, then the school needs to know this. But they don't need to get every picayune little error, and they don't need to get them one at a time. Why not save a few of them up and then just report the most egregious ones? Since it's not the instructors' fault, can you also tell the dean or someone who might be in charge deciding what to use for academic materials? They might not realize what they are handing out is wrong.

But pick your battles. A typo here and there? Let it go. A major issue which is utterly wrong? Yeah, I'd report those.