Good introductory text book on Matroid Theory? I am looking for a good text book on Matroid theory.  Ideally, one that might be better suited to engineers than pure mathematicians...but any book that is well written/organized would do.
I have just started looking into this area and am working through some survey papers (Wison's "An Introduction to Matroid Theory" and Oxley's "What is a Matroid?")
My university library has a copy of Tutte's book, and I will probably check that out.  Just wondering what other people might suggest.
Thanks!
 A: My usual recommendations are Theory of Matroids and Matroid Applications. These are multi-author volumes edited by N. White, and he has done a great job choosing authors and homogenizing notation. Although I believe the second volume was intended to be more applied, I didn't really feel there was a difference between the two in this regard.
A: I just discovered this nice book that was published this year


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*Gordon and McNulty (2012). Matroids. A geometric Introduction.
It is an undergraduate textbook on matroids! (Maybe the first undergraduate one completely devoted to matroids?) And from what I could see from the first few chapters, it is highly pedagogical and very well written.
A: Textbooks on matroids can be a bit heavy.  I suggest the following two:
1)  Aigner's classical Combinatorial Theory textbook which has two lengthy and well written chapters on matroids, totaling about 140 pp. Some material is a bit dated (historical notes, refs, etc.) but it's great as an introduction, and recent surveys will fill you in on modern developments.  
2) Vol. B of Schrijver's Combinatorial Optimization monograph.  It's not really a textbook and it covers only certain topics in matroid theory, but it might be better suited for applications you need, and is terrifically written. 
Good luck!
A: I agree that Tony Huynh's suggestions of Oxley and Welsh are good ones.  Depending on what you mean by "suited to engineers," another option might be Lawler's Combinatorial Optimization: Networks and Matroids.  Lawler's book focuses on the algorithmic aspects of matroids.  Lawler's book was reprinted by Dover but it now seems to be out of print again.  :-(  However, it seems that you can still find inexpensive copies for sale on the web easily enough.
A: My first recommendation would be Oxley's Matroid Theory.  The second edition was just released this year (19 years after the original), so this is a very 'modern' textbook.
Another option would be Welsh's Matroid Theory.  This is an older book (it predates even Oxley's first edition), but is nicely written with a more geometric flavour.  Also, I just found out that Welsh's book recently became available as a Dover paperback, so it's very cheap if you want to buy it.  
A: My first recommendation would be Oxley's Matroid Theory (Oxley J. G., Matroid Theory, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992). It is a well organized textbook.
If you are looking for application, Recski A., Matroid Theory and its Applications, Springer Verlag, Berlin (1989) would be best option.
