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Digital Textbooks for College?
doggkruse asks: "I recently purchased textbooks for the current semester in college only to end up with an empty wallet and a sore back. I have been looking into digital textbooks so that I will not have to lug around the real ones any more. I have found one site that seems to offer a very limited number of digital books. Does anyone know of a more complete solution. Especially one that works with Mac OS X. As laptops in classes are becoming more prolific, I think it is time to ditch the paper and save my wallet."
Are college books expensive because of the actual printing of the book or because of the value of the information (real or imagined)?
Though, saving your back is still a great idea!
I just wanted to say that I want more e-publications out there. I used to balk at the idea of paying for information. But the truth is that the convenience of not having a paper thing to throw away later is growing more and more attractive. Just email me a .PDF version of the mag. If I want to read it in the bathroom, I'll just copy it to my PocketPC.
Should schoolbooks be the same way? You bet! You tend to get spoiled by the find command.
"Derp de derp."
The question is, are you comfortable with reading hours upon hours from your laptop? Just staring at that screen? I suppose if you don't work with computers regularly, you may find that worthwhile, but think about it first before taking a leap of faith. I just checked your site, and the books are around 25-45, depending on subject. The real equivalents would be 3 or 4 times more, but in the end, you can sell them on half.com or back to your book store and re-coup most of your losses. Think about if first is all I'm saying.
A blog like any other.
~~~
I think that's what everyone's using these days, anyway...
1. Buy a Digital Camera (3 megapixels is fine, less may be ok)
2. Buy the Book.
3. Take digital photos of the book (you can do a full 1000 page text book in an hour or two)
4. Return the book.
You'll make the money back on the camera in one term. For best quality, use a tripod and take the pictures outside in natural sunlight (but you can get buy in a quiet corner of a library or bookstore)
After some processing, images are about 100k each in jpeg format. They can be viewed on a PDA (not for long viewing sessions, though) or over the internet with a reasonably fast connection. I haven't had much luck with OCR software, or conversion to PDF.
While I sympathize with your plight, I'm even more concerned with the number and size of books that are being foisted on our younger students. It's worse than it was when I was in school - and a large number of children are starting to develop back and shoulder problems at a very young age because of the weight of the books they are expected to carry.
Problem is, textbook companies don't *want* to put things on CD for us - there's no financial incentive to do so. One student could buy the textbook and share it with the whole class - or even world+dog. So they have no reason to put things in a digital format, as much easier as that would be.
Anybody have any ideas about how we might get around this?
Your professor holds office hours, and announces them at the begining of class. (at least in the university I went to, I assume the others are similear) Get in his office and complain that paper books are too heavy and askward, you want paper books. Don't forget to mention that cost is also a problem with books. Thank the professors who do pay attention to money (even if it is accidental...) too. While you are there (and now that you know the way and when to go) use those office hours regularly get help on the class. Perhaps you can get an A. (I always wished I had taken my own advice...)
Most text books are written by professors. If you demand e-books, they will see a demand, and make sure at the very least their next book has an electronic format.
You as a student have little power in itself. Professors are human though, and they have power. Work on them, and they will use the power to represent your interests.
Is it cheaper to:
They'll lock you into a magic proprietary format which will break at the most inopportune time and you won't be able to sell them to others. Just say no. High book prices is one of the costs of college.
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
I recently purchased textbooks for the current semester in college only to end up with an empty wallet and a sore back.
A sore back? Um, how exactly are you making money for college again?
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
My biggest complaint about this would be the marks highlighters make on the laptop screen when I'm studying for a test...
Seriously, though, as big and heavy as they are, marking up your books so you can study effectively is something that isn't possible (that I know of) with an eBook or PDF. Until this happens, as much as I want to, I can't see replacing dead tree books with my Palm Pilot.
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
You're sadly delusional if you think that digital textbooks will cost any bit less than the dead-tree counterparts. Retail e-books cost just as much as the hardcovers, even after they're out on paperback. If anything, I'd say the publishers will charge more for the e-textbook because of all the value-added of being able to search through it easily.
--------- Beware the dragon, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
And they'll have no resale value, because they'll be DRM'd out the ass.
ok, so i thought i'd look at computer books.
Introduction to Object Oriented Programming With C++
Millspaugh, Anita
Harcourt College Publishers
ISBN: 0-03-023621-5
Digital version: $40
Amazon marketplace: 23 from $7.49 - just bought one including shipping for $10
Amazon.co.uk: 19.95 = $30USD approx.
so what would you use? what's the advantage, when i can have a book in my hand for $10 to have it digitally for $40...
On the other hand, I am studing for medical specialty board exams. For this I prefer getting paper textbooks. Its easier to "study" from books. For studing I'm likely to read the book for hours at a time and make notes in the margin etc. Portability and searchability are less important. Even though electronic forms are available for most, I still wouldn't consider using them for study. For courses at college I would still recommend getting paper books.
So I would suggest you decide what sort of texts you want... study vs. reference. Get paper books for the study books, and get web access for reference books. The only central search engine I've found for finding online text is google, there is no equivalent to amazon.com.
Elivs
While I am generally a fan of traditional paper books, at my uni on the CS course most of the lecturers made their notes (powerpoint, pdf etc) available electronically and for a lot of courses these sufficed -- maybe you should ask about this as well?
due to the fact that you'll have to keep replacing your PowerBook/iBook LCDs as the scribbled notes, highlighter annotations, and Liquid Paper blotches add up to make the screen unreadable. ;>
Firstly, let's address the cost. They won't cost less. Sorry. Professors and book companies (and even universities) exact their toll in royalties. They won't lower the cost of an electronic edition. In fact, many professors must publish books because they do not make enough money teaching and through research. Defining 'enough money' is left as an exercise for the reader.
But really, publishing an electronic book is just as, and possibly more, expensive than a paper book. You don't get calls the night before finals at the publisher house, "I'm having trouble turning the page..." or, more realistically, "The index is missing/doesn't work, etc"
Tech support is only half the problem. The EBook must also then work on at least Windows 95-xp, Mac 8 and above, Linux (dozens of variations), and a few unix OSs.
Furthermore, the book is expected to work on any future machines invented in the next dozen years - with some books needing an indefinite lifetime.
Then comes the problem of errata and editions. How often do you release a new edition? How do you package it? What features do you support? At this point each textbook is expected to have the text, a few apendices (answers, basic concepts, refreshers, glossaries) and an index and bibliography. These are easy to add to the computer version, but then you can't compete on level ground with other publishers with greater resources. Given the choice between a complete Ebook with basic search, and a not-so complete EBook with search, interactive examples, etc the professors are going to choose the inferior book because of the bells and whistles. Books will become all about the bells and whistles.
Because of that professors will be hard pressed to add new, expensive, and time consuming material such as videos, and perhaps even full lectures to the "EBooks". A publisher simply won't accept an EBook unless it can win out over another already existing EBook in the flash, fit and finish department.
Besides all this, the professors using the text must adapt to the new teaching style an EBook requires - and you'd have to double publish the book and EBook so nobody would be left out.
The experience I've had is with a few books (in computer courses) where the book includes a CD with the full searchable text, and another book where the complete text is available for free online. I used the online one, but I only toyed with the CD one. The online version didn't have page numbers that corresponded with the printed text, but otherwise was usable as long as I knew what chapter and subchapter we were talking about in class.
In short, they may come, but only when professors themselves decide to ask publishers to publish their works in ebook format.
-Adam
Right, but it has nothing to do with convenience.
Such high-level/low-demand textbooks as my grad-level quantum field mechanics book ($150+ in 1993!) are expensive because of the FIXED cost of getting them written, not the variable cost of printing them. Your standard $30 intro-to psych text is much cheaper because the fixed production cost is spread out over a much larger number of units -- many many more people take intro to psych than quantum field mechanics.
Unfortunately, the variable costs are the ones that are zeroed out by e-book publishing. Unless you are looking for a best-seller that's already made back its fixed costs, so much for the revolution.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
As the classroom becomes more digital, I predict we'll see a strong move to "courseware" as opposed to simple digital versions of textbooks. One reason (among many) is that courseware is easy to do in the form of "software as service" and thus has little worry about unauthorized copying. But some people are doing courseware that may be freely copied and reused. Check out MIT OpenCourseWare and the Rice Connexions Repository.
Also, why not collaborative creation of textbooks using a Wikipedia model?
You can find 'pirated' books on usenet, but you're unlikely to find the specific books you want/need that way. Good way to get some cheap (free) reference material though.
The digital camera idea is fine, except that JPEG doesn't do solid black lines so well. I suspect that 'doing a 1000 page book' in an afternoon or something is more than a bit optimistic.
Get a locker or two. Don't lug all of your books around to all of your classes. You're in college for gods sake -- you only have a few classes a day and unless you've worked out some scheduling miracle you'll have plenty of time between sessions to stop off at a locker.
maybe use the digital camera idea for chapters you're studying that week -- quick reference w/out the book.
Most of my prof's only rarely referred to the textbooks, making them a near total waste of money. A few used them extensively. Try to guess which is which and return the less-used books during the first week or two of classes.
Most university libraries have course textbooks on reserve. Use that as a resource when you *have* to read something in particular. Or ask a cute classmate to have a 'study session' and mooch off of their book.
Check in with the prof during office hours. Many will have 'last years' review copy laying around. A little social engineering might get you access to it.
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
I'd mod you up if I had mod points. It all boils down to people not fully accepting what technology can do for them out of fear, ignorance, or both.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Several of my professors are in the process of writing their own book. They're not done yet. "In the meantime, here's a free digital copy!" Of course, they're in .ps, and heafty to print, come with no index, and are added to daily. What I wouldn't give for a fucking hardcopy when I'm trying to figure out how to turn this professor's bizarre proof into an SML program, with his beta ForLan tools.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
I am not sure about the e-book, but I can help with your back problem. Go to Kinkos or any other copy shop and have them razor the binding of the textbook. Then take a standard three-hole puncher to the text and viola! Now you only have to take the chapters you need to class in a standard 3-ring binder.
But it is hard to guess how it will change other aspects of life and indeed that will be the greater impact. Suddenly a society with truly equal opportunity, being rich or of a geographic local like the US may not distinguish between the have and have nots of knowledge, information, and hence opportunity as is now specifically the case in institutions of higher learning and modern media. Perhaps literature becomes free while physical books might become more sought of as tokens, tomes, and symbols of knowledge by increasingly eclectic collectors and keepers. Their real value is that they can be referenced and referred to as frozen snapshots of a state knowledge at a given point in history. A slice of the cerebral cortex while the cerebral cortex continues to think and evolve.
The primary texts are free to change and develop, free of traditional copyright, until someone again takes a snapshot or captures a state of the literature that is particularly poignant or relative. What living texts will mean to educational texts is one thing (in fact it's well underway specifically making leaps in the study of the human genome), but what it means to fiction could be quite amazing. Will arts and literature cease to sustain a living? Will all those facets of life beyond basic existence (food, shelter, water) separate from from the higher exploits of culture, like art, literature and music. A separation of culture and commerce similar to the separation of church and state?
Would this truly make culture open and finally end the corruption and exploitation of culture by commerce. (Yes your identity and your need to belong in culture are being exploitatiously sold back to you, don't buy in, don't further fuel it.) It's a given that commerce has driven a wedge between the population and it's own culture and identity. It's given that further alienation of the individual and their society through commerce will increase suicide, bulimia, and and infinite amount of other social illnesses.
Will a separation of culture and commerce allow for greater opportunity and interest in non-commercial success through exploits in knowledge and arts without some sort of mandate for commercial success first. Perhaps in the near future someone might happily flip burgers and be a world renowned expert and lecturer on 1950's movie posters, or 14th century history of the city of Florence though they may live in Boise Idaho.
I am a monkey. This is slashdot.
Solution: Make grad-level quantum mechanics required in freshman year :).
I am a Computer Science student at Acadia University in Wolfville Nova Scotia Canada, and we were the first university in the world to have LAN and intenet access in each students dorm room, and to issue an IBM laptop to each student.
;)), my costs have gone down because most professors will give you URLs for sites with the text or references on them. This cuts my bills in half, but because we have laptops and OC3 internet connections, we have the highest tuition of any university in canada, coming in at just under 15,000 CDN (about 26,000 CDN for international students).
For most of my classes, I have the traditional text book, but even in the time that I started here, (Last year
I just like the laptop, because I personally can't stand reading an EBook on my PDA all day... my eyes cant take it... i'm used to the laptop screen.
I think that we are never going to get out of this paper addiciton that we got ourselves into. Even with the wide spread usage of computer, we are using more paper than ever.
while(1) { fork(); };
I am reminded of a friend who was working for her PhD in Art History. Part of the final exam required her to be able to identify any image from the textbook with detailed info on date, artist, etc. She decided to turn her textbook into flashcards. Of course she immediately discovered she'd need TWO copies of the textbook to turn every photo into a card, since some images on one side of the page would cut into an image on the other side. Of course she needed 3 copies of the textbook since she had to study it too. And this was a $95 textbook, back in the 1970s when that was REAL money.
Anyway, it is fairly easy to convert textbooks to PDFs on a scanner, I do it all the time. The easiest way is to cut the binding off the book, and shove all the pages in a sheet-fed scanner. Of course you destroy the book in the process, but you could have it rebound if you really cared to.
In 10 years the cheap availability of digital textbooks will be offset by the animated ads for fast food and deoderant that appear in the margins.
::Runs to patent office::
Ummm... Patent Pending!
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
Purchase your books at the beginning of the semester, and scan the chapters in one by one as you need them. It's a lot of work, so you might want to get together with several other Technorati in your class and spread the work and share the benefits.
The best way to store the information would be to save each page as a gif, tiff, jepg (whatever floats your boat) and then collect the pages for each chapter into a PDF document. At the end of the semester you will have the entire book in digital format. You can sell the original back to the bookstore and keep the digital copy for future reference. Make backups!
As others have mentioned, book printing is a pretty minimal part of the cost of the textbook. Even shipping, handling, breaking bulk, staff at the bookstore, and everything else are pretty minimal. Just think about how much a generic, big dictionary costs compared to a textbook. Books are expensive because they can be! Each book a professor or faculty chooses for a course becomes a mini-monopoly. Thus, it is logical that companies try to maximize their revenues, when they own these little markets. This means, books priced as high as is considered affordable, and very short edition life and shrink wrapped books are used to kill off the resale market.
The publishing houses and authors work very hard to win over professors and faculties - free books for the profs are only part of the marketing that goes on. Some other "selling" features are the bundled resources like sample tests, and spiffy "website resources". There might be other less moral incentives, but I don't know for sure either way.
A good situation for students? No. Are high textbook prices the fault of professors? Probably not. Are they the fault of publishers or authors? Maybe. Is it simply a broken market for consumers? Yeah, probably.
Vital Source produces DVDs for mainly medical and dental textbooks. Sadly, their website is lacking in detail.
From what I recall students get about two DVDs per academic year, one at the start and one in the middle. A freely available properiatery reader program and license key is required to view the content. OS requirements are 2000, XP, OS 9 or OS X.
Vital Source has secured the copyright to many many textbooks. Schools can also submit their own content to be included on the DVD, such as lab manuals, student orientation guides, etc. Hyperlinks can also refer back to the schools website. I can't recall which schools use these DVDs but there are a few. I believe New Jersey Dental School uses them.
Disclaimer: I am not employed by Vital Source in any way.