Ad-supported Textbooks Are Here

prostoalex writes "Talk to any student about the price of the college textbooks, and you're likely to hear similar complaints about the cost of the textbooks, the rip-off buyout prices at local college bookstores and insidious publishers who keep changing editions every few years just to change the page numbers and kill off the used books market. Freeload Press, says the New York Times, will distribute ad-supported electronic textbooks to students of 38 universities. However, it seems that neither professors neither New York Times are impressed with the quality of titles so far: 'The reading difficulty is created by Freeload's use of PDF images, which retain the printed page's layout without reformatting. Navigating around a single superwide, supertall page requires lots of clicking and zooming and patience. The company will soon use improved software that can automatically adjust the text so it is more legible, said Tom Duran, a founder of Freeload Press and its chief executive.'"

Comments

lazy professors

[legoburner]

I wonder how long it will take for a lazy professor to include an advert in a test, or how many of the stupider students learn the adverts. I hope they have some standards to make the adverts very different to the text and not like a large number of magazines which print adverts that look a little like articles.

Re:lazy professors

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a textbook in economics and a chapter on the pros and cons of capitalism.

Re:lazy professors

[BakaHoushi]

History 101, chapter 57, American Revolution

"...due to a pounding headache, General Washington couldn't think well enough to keep his troops in line. Luckily, a medic delivered to him new TYLENOL FAST ACTING GEL CAPLETS, the soothing action of which cleared his head in just minutes, letting him order his troops properly, and ensuring the victory for the Americans.

Tylenol: Fast acting strength, protecting America from the British since 1776"

Re:lazy professors

[john82]

Or perhaps a generous infusion of Exxon "advertising" allows one to focus less on certain pesky environmental (oil spills) and economic (profiteering) issues?

Re:lazy professors

[period3]

...or how long until questions about the advertisements actually appear on the test. After all, advertisers will pay more if they know their ad is actually being looked at, and what better way to guarantee that then to ask a few questions about it?

great!

[macadamia_harold]

The company will soon use improved software that can automatically adjust the text so it is more legible, said Tom Duran, a founder of Freeload Press and its chief executive.'

Does it also automatically adjust the text to reflect new information received from the Ministry of Truth?

Re:great!

[PakProtector]

Does it also automatically adjust the text to reflect new information received from the Ministry of Truth?

The text is true. The text has always been true.

Re:great!

[AnyoneEB]

Uh, how does that relate to the software being able to change the font size/page layout? The feature being suggested sounds more like a web browser's ability adjust the layout when you resize the window.

Re:great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like someone needs to be re-educated.

This doesn't solve the original problem

[Antony-Kyre]

This doesn't solve the original problem of the textbooks being expensive in the first place. If we simply throw money funding towards higher education, and say, "No!" to newer books that don't give us anything useful, problem solved.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a (UK) textbook publisher which also sells its textbooks in the US.

Here's why US textbooks are so expensive:

In the US, textbooks are frequently published in hardback format. While a hardback costs very little more to actually produce (about $3 dollars more than a paperback), you can sell them for almost twice the cost of a paperback version because the market allows it.

In the UK, textbooks are almost always paperback (we sell a few hardback copies as well in the UK, but mainly to professors who will be using the book extensively for several years, and so want something very durable).

So why don't US textbook publishers publish in paperback? The traditional way (in both the US and the UK) to get a textbook adopted by a professor teaching a course (and hence secure sales from all of his/her students - sometimes up to 500 individuals - and these adoptions frequently last for 2-3 years-worth of students because professors, like all humans, are allergic to change) is to have a Sales Rep visit every single professor teaching a relevant course and try to convince them to buy it. In the UK that's not too expensive - the UK is fairly small and urban centres (and hence universities) aren't too far apart, so few Reps are needed and travel costs are low. The US is huge and urban centres (and hence universities) are separated by huge distances. Lots of Reps are needed and travel costs are higher becuase of the larger distances.

The upshot is that US textbook publishers mainly publish in hardback format (usually about twice the price of a paperback, but for a very small increase in production costs) in order to claw back some of the costs of these Sales Reps. In the UK, the market wouldn't stand for that - paperback textbooks at paperback prices are the norm, and besides the Sales Rep costs that need to be paid for are much much smaller, as mentioned above.

When the company I work for started selling one of our latest (paperback) textbooks in the US, we were slaughtering the (hardback) opposition on price (and our textbook is much better, natch!). We weren't using the expensive Sales-Reps-travelling-the-country method to get adoptions, we were using other much cheaper (and obviously not-to-be-disclosed-here) methods to promote the book. The professors loved the book for the quality of its content, and the students love the price.

I'm sure US textbook publishers will wise up at some point soon (some probably already are - I only really know about the academic discipline that the company I work for publishes in) but until then we'll keep getting those valuable adoptions.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[pimpimpim]

You probably were already implying this, but let me restate: Not all new books don't give something useful!

Education is something that is actually advancing, be it slowly. It's important to have access to new books, for example something that integrates new insight into the material, or is based on new knowledge on how students can learn better. I, for example, learned mechanics from a book that said in the introduction that 'the SI system will probably not be very popular'. So our class ended up to spend more time converting args/dyn to some understandable unit than to learn mechanics :)

I can give you other examples, from widely different fields: for example a process in cellbiology where receptors have been found to posess a sort of baseline activity, which you can oppose with inverse agonist drugs, in a much subtler way than just using antagonist drugs. Other one: a friend from eastern europe learned english from books that are by now 30 years old or more. She probably has a pro in grammatical knowledge of the language now, but speaking it is much more difficult, because any new expressions weren't in there, nor the more new learning methods to actually have conversations etc.

The examples above were all for first year knowledge in the respective fields. But to be honest, there are also bad examples: there are unfortunately enough professors that are vague in telling which books you should know, or want to promote their own book, and you end up buying books that weren't important for the class and you are likely to read never again.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Sillygates]

I think nbcindia.com solves the problem.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[frickendevil]

IMO all textbooks (paperback and hardcover) are blazingly expensive. I'm currently a pharmacy student at James Cook University Australia and I am paying about $1000 (aud) (500 quid) a year on textbooks alone. This money isn't easy to come accross as a university student. But that isnt the problem. Of one years worth of textbooks, one was hardcover, the rest were paperback BUT the hardcover textbook was the cheapest. Not only that, but it was the most specific and information filled out of the collection.

All in all I'm all for finding a cheaper way to get the material I need. If it comes in PDF files that are ad supported, I'm all for that.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[eggoeater]

We weren't using the expensive Sales-Reps-travelling-the-country method to get adoptions, we were using other much cheaper (and obviously not-to-be-disclosed-here) methods to promote the book.

You mean like mailing a copy and then calling them?

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[zlogic]

Well, in Russia a lot of hardback textbooks cost about $1-$2, with the exception of about $15 for really large or well-made ones. What's more, a lot of technical books (such as O'Reilly, Wrox) cost two to three times cheaper than the original English version. And they're all legal!

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[kerrbear]

In the UK, the market wouldn't stand for that - paperback textbooks at paperback prices are the norm

Can I just say, this makes porting the books around a hekuva lot eaiser too because they are lighter. The Chinese do it even one better. They break up their course books into seperate booklets, all in paperback so you are not carrying around an entire years worth of material with each book! This can make your backback about ten times lighter. Now, of course, a decent eletronic format could solve the rest of the weight problem. But it doesn't look like this is it.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US, textbooks are frequently published in hardback format.

That sure is news to me because I have bought one hardback textbook out of many in my 3 1/2 years in college so far. And many of the books have been the newest edition coming out that year. Maybe the US publishers have wised up a bit...

There is one thing that may confuse teachers and professors and even "trick" them into using a particular book. I had one professor last year who had us buying a book (paperback) for around $80. It was the newest edition. When she found this out, she was appalled, why? Because the publisher that she had gotten it from (after looking at many different books) had only charged her around $35 for it! She felt terrible for her students and since then has gone to using older editions which have the same information and supplemental PDF files for more recent relevant news. Perhaps this is the publisher's way of getting teachers to use their book.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[cubicledrone]

This doesn't solve the original problem of the textbooks being expensive in the first place.

BUT THAT"S THE FREEEEEEEEE MARKET! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[AlexanderDitto]

...In country of Russia, Books buy You?

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Tylerious]

I'm a US college student and all my books were paperback this year. It still ended up costing me aroun $400 this semester, even with buying as many of them used as I could. Of course, I couldn't for some because the edition changed for some miniscule reason.

In my opinion, it's the professors that are the problem. They're the ones that require a specific (new) edition instead of letting us buy used books.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Weh]

This may be true for some fields but I can easily use 50 years old textbooks for introductory courses in mechanics/mathematics etc. Unit conversion is really not such a problem, when doing problems you only really need to convert the final answer (btw, unit conversion is a very handy skill to have and it also makes you double check if your units are indeed correct). I've used US unit textbooks (I'm european) and had no trouble learning from them. The changes in many of the introductory engineering textbooks I've seen are basically in the page numbers and some pictures/colors etc. At an introductory level not that much has changed in engineering.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[mbradshawlong]

Sure, quite a few of the textbooks I used were hard cover. However, many courses had books that were soft cover at my American university, too. These were just as outrageously expensive. This coming semester, my significant other is returning to take another course. The soft-cover text for this course is almost $100.00. The parent is claiming that the company (s)he works for is selling paperback textbooks for less, but I bet they are still over priced.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[geobeck]

I'm headed back to school in another two weeks. The technical institution where I'll be studying has another solution to the problem of expensive textbooks: the instructors roll their own.

I'm taking a one-year, condensed program, with about two dozen individual courses, and I have to buy half a dozen textbooks, total cost to me: under $1000. For the rest, the instructors have compiled course notes based on their own training and experience. (All of the instructors in this program are currently employed in the field; they take time from their jobs to come teach a course.)

The result: Less expensive course materials that are much more relevant to that specific course, without several hundred pages of unused filler. (That's the worst part about textbooks: Publishers want textbooks to be a certain size, so they're often filled with total "WTF?" crap.)

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[rbrander]

The British poster who works in the industry is the most useful post on this topic so far. Combined with the backing of the Russian poster, we seem to have the following conclusions:

1) The marginal production cost of the product is a few dollars for paperback, several for hardback.

2) The base production cost varies - books on .NET that only sell for a few years and take $100K in salaries to produce may need many dollars per book to defray that cost unless they can grab the whole market, but books that have hardly changed (I mean REALLY changed) for decades would add less than a dollar per copy for "creative effort".

3) Book costs in Russia reflect these costs and little else.

4) Book costs in the UK are raised a little and in the USA a lot by (drum roll please):
                MARKETING COSTS.

Yes, MARKETING, that eternal enemy of both the scientific and artistic talent that come out of Universities, the internal corporate nemisis of quality and honesty in the product production groups - yes, MARKETING is actually their enemy from before they ever get OUT of school and into a job!

The explanation certainly sounds a little simplistic - heck, almost "communistic". By which I mean, that the free-market process of having many textbook products to choose from, and marketers that make all options known to the professor/customers, is SUPPOSED to result in top products for rock-bottom prices. It certainly works that way with DVD players. Whereas this explanation for the situation seems to be saying we'd all be paying a fraction of the price if some (benevolent) dictator picked THE "Physics 201" text and had enough printed for everybody, and no damn marketing costs, just $1 for the author, $7 for the printers, $2 for shipping and bookstore cuts, final sale price $9.99.

Whenever something is going wrong with a free-market solution, either the product doesn't work well in a free market, or you don't actually have a free market and somebody is taking advantage of a (near) monopoly.

The notion of "free" books, a la Free Software - basically, a suggestion that a collection of Wikipedia articles on a topic be expanded into a WikiTextBook - does not strike me as inherently impossible. I didn't think the Wikipedia would go so far, I didn't see so many good writers taking the time to contribute to a free product. But I was wrong, very wrong - and now I can't help wondering if the almost heartbreakingly great effort, sustained for a year or two, that is necessary to write a good textbook, could actually be generated by a free-contributory process.

If so, it could sweep away the whole system, long-term. I do think professors can consider working from sources that don't have big Seal-of-Approval stickers all over the names involved. They are professors, after all, able to check the veracity and value of the work all by themselves, or they couldn't teach the course. And once it caught on, it would spread rapidly.

Because markets that actually aren't free and are creating falsely high prices, are TERRIBLY vulnerable to genuine competition.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Chasa]

I've spent nearly 1500$ on books this semester just so the book publishers can pay for more sale reps?

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Millenniumman]

The prices aren't high because of marketing, they are high because they can be. If a course requires a book, then students have to buy it. The books compete to be used in courses, but after that they must be used by the students. If everyone used the same book, prices would be astronomical.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[BalanceOfJudgement]

Of course, I couldn't for some because the edition changed for some miniscule reason.

You know the sick part is, one year while I was in college we were required to buy some obscenely expensive book for one of my engineering courses. When I went to sell it back at the end of the year to try to recoup some of the nearly $200 spent on the book, I was told they couldn't buy it back because a new revision had been released.

The only difference between the new revision and the old one? One person's name had been added to the credits list.

Sick.

Seriously, they only do that to kill the used book market, and they do it on purpose. How dare those poor college students get something back from their books! Damn pirates..

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[happyemoticon]

I do that too, it just involves some scissors and duct tape.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[sleep-doc]

I've been teaching 27 years in a university located in the less rural northeast US. I've never had a salesman visit about textbooks. I think the differential in price is the motivating factor for the publishers, but I doubt the driving mechanism is to recover a specific sales related cost rather than general greed. The issue is tying up information is an expensive format for a "middleman" to take a profit. This is particularly so with respect to scholarly journals. If we (producers of the studies and texts) published in an electronic format more, or in the lower cost paper format, we would help to prevent the spiral in education costs now seen in the US.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Frumious Wombat]

If you want prevent the spiral in education costs, then convince your (legislature/board of directors) to (1) reign in the explosion of deans with their retinues, (2) reign in the athletics departments (if you aren't top 10 nationally, cut the program back to intramurals and fire the surplus coaching staff), and (3) reign in the entitlement mentality of students these days. The last would go a long way to controlling costs, as things they consider necessities now (such as single dorm rooms at all levels, well-equiped modern gyms, cable tv to the rooms), were luxuries or unavailable 20 years ago. Trim back the gilding, and control the explosion of non-educational management, and you'll have a shot at controlling costs.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Kaboom13]

'The explanation certainly sounds a little simplistic - heck, almost "communistic". By which I mean, that the free-market process of having many textbook products to choose from, and marketers that make all options known to the professor/customers, is SUPPOSED to result in top products for rock-bottom price"

The reason for this is simple. Professors don't look at the price. They are given free copies by the publisher. They don't have to pay for the book, so they don't care what it costs. Likewise, they dont care if a new, completely pointless edition is released, because that just means the publisher sends them a fancy new replacement book. The professors rairly even look at quality of the text when picking a textbook, they go with who gave them the best free vacation, or whose sale's rep had the biggest tits, etc. I once had a professor tell me he got on his department's committee for picking textbooks, not because he cared about the book (he actually advised his students not to buy it, because everything you needed was available in course notes he provieded) but for all the free crap from the publishers. In my courses, I never even bought the book about half the time because it wasnt actually needed, and the prof never even reffered to it.

Meanwhile, the publishers have a new way to force you to buy new. My physics book came with a code for online homework, and an electronic response clicker thing. The code is only good once, and my professor requires we do it. A used book is about $90, however if you have to buy the code for the homework seperately, it costs about $50. The clicker is like $20 seperatle, and the frequency code card for it is like $40. A new textbook, which includes all of this for "free" is $140. By adding in 1-use only crap, and convincing lazy profs to use it, they have completely killed the secondary market for that book.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[operagost]

Other one: a friend from eastern europe learned english from books that are by now 30 years old or more.
She probably has a pro in grammatical knowledge of the language now, but speaking it is much more difficult, because any new expressions weren't in there,

That must really kill her grasp of 31337 h4x0r speech. On the plus side, she's probably the grooviest cat in the disco. Get lost, squares!

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah - we still include chapters on that crazy 'Evolution' theory...

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Anonymous Coward]

ah yes, but, kerrbear, you just don't know how valuable a full-year textbook is until you lose it.

When I was in 7th grade many, many years ago, they adopted a similar idea--many small textbooks to lighten your backpack. Not only did the textbooks fail to teach well (good thing the teacher knew how to teach), if you forgot something, your loss. You couldn't go back and look it up. Painfully annoying for things like finals.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[1u3hr]

All in all I'm all for finding a cheaper way to get the material I need.

I used to borrow a textbook and spend an hour at the photocopier. Copy it double sided for best effect; if the type is large reduce it. Then visited an office that had a binding machine and I had my personalised edition.

If it comes in PDF files that are ad supported, I'm all for that.

As long as they're not locked down with DRM. Some otherwise useful texts have even selecting text disabled, so you can't copy and paste notes. That was the time to try Elcomsoft's AEBPR (that got Sklyarov arrested).

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Tacvek]

Meanwhile, the publishers have a new way to force you to buy new. My physics book came with a code for online homework, and an electronic response clicker thing. The code is only good once, and my professor requires we do it. A used book is about $90, however if you have to buy the code for the homework seperately, it costs about $50. The clicker is like $20 seperatle, and the frequency code card for it is like $40. A new textbook, which includes all of this for "free" is $140. By adding in 1-use only crap, and convincing lazy profs to use it, they have completely killed the secondary market for that book.

I love the way the codes for the online homework courses are all created by the same company, despite being used by many competeing book publishers.

Anyway, the publisher usually provides the instructor with a re-usable code code that all students can use for the online homework. I know that I have not even removed the shrink wrap from my chemistry book, but have enrolled in the online homework (The best one I have ever seen too!). Always ask the prof for a free code before opening the code booklet that comes with your textbook or buying a new code booklet if your textbook is used.

Now, as for the clickers, I am only familiar with Einstructions's CPS unit. You buy the clicker, and in theory you could get a used one. (You will have to work with the previous owner and einstruction to have their account removed from the database, so that you can enter the serial number into your new account, but it is possible). You then must enroll the clicker into your courses. Yo do this you must pay online with a credit card, use a code card. Code cards can be bought at the bookstore (DO THIS! EInstruction makes less profit like this), or may come packaged with a textbook. The ones that come with a textbook come in two forms: Free enrollment, or 50% off.

The reason you pay per class, or per semester (depends on how much the school has payed EInstruction) is that EInstruction is offering a service. Just about everyting to do with the clicker operated over a web service. There is no techincal reason for this, as stand-alone software could obviously be used. EInstruction claims the reason is that the webservice makes things easier for the Prof. That is a very questionable claim.

But the clicker really does not have anything to do with forcing you to buy a new textbook.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[rbrander]

>The prices aren't high because of marketing

Well, "sez you" ... I was working from the post of the one guy who claims to work in the business.

>they are high because they can be.

I *think* you are agreeing with me. Prices CAN'T be high in a free market because a competing author and publisher will produce a book of equal quality and be happy with a 10% profit instead of 200%. So the only way for "because they can be" to be true would imply market failure.

If the educators forcing you to use the product were getting kickbacks, it would all make sense, a closed-loop racket. Yet many posts appear to indicate that profs are distressed by the situation as well. Leading to the assumption that the profs have no meaningful choices outside a tight little publishing cartel that limits choice.

Cartels can only form where the barriers to entry are high, or again some maverick will start up a publishing house and offer cheaper books. Is that the case, or have we missed something?

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[bcrowell]

Paper, printing, and binding typically make up only a very small percentage of the retail cost of the book, and the difference in production cost between a paperback and a hardback is small, as you note. I don't see how any of that relates to a large difference in price between the UK and the US...!? Sure, it's expensive to pay all those book reps, but I don't see how that relates to the tiny difference in production costs between a paperback and a hardcover. Also, although the US is geographically bigger than the UK, the market is many times larger, and most of the colleges and universities are concentrated in a few large cities.

we were slaughtering the (hardback) opposition on price
I also don't follow you here. Adoptions in the college market aren't sensitive to price. The professor makes the decision about which book to adopt, and doesn't typically notice whether the book is $100 or $130. Of course, you might get higher sell-through at the lower price. Or, if you're just entering the market, you may find that sell-through is high because used copies aren't on the market.

I think the simplest explanation for why prices are the way they are in a particular country is just something along the lines of price leadership, or something bordering on price fixing. Basically the publishers look at what the other publishers are charging for books. If Organic Chemistry Book A goes up from $140 to $150, then the publisher of Organic Chemistry Book B sees that it's safe for them to raise their price to $150 as well.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Millenniumman]

These companies aren't selling the books to students, who pay the high prices, but to professors. The price of the book is one of the "features", and one that professors may or may not care about. The market is working very well for the people the publishers are selling the books to, as they get the books for free. Cartels only exist in the sense that students have no choice in a given course, and these cartels are created by the professors, not the publishers.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[rpgirl1981]

I agree with you but... Why is the cost of a paperback text the same as a hardback one? When I went to school, the physics book I got was used. The bookstore was selling the hardback used book at the same price as the paperback used book. I got one of the last hardback physics texts there was of that edition. I've noticed that with other books as well. I don't know about you, but as a student, I always prefered the hardback books. They lasted longer, and were in better condition to resell to the bookstore. I'd get more value back for the hardback ones than the paperback ones. And, if I wanted to keep the book (like I did with my core and specialty engineering books) I wanted something that was going to last. Just my 2 cents.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, of course, a decent eletronic format could solve the rest of the weight problem.

80
You mean Dilbert's boss was wrong when he said that big files weighed more than small ones?

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[ZiakII]

Well, in Russia a lot of hardback textbooks cost about $1-$2, with the exception of about $15 for really large or well-made ones. What's more, a lot of technical books (such as O'Reilly, Wrox) cost two to three times cheaper than the original English version. And they're all legal!

No kidding I often buy my text books from ebay because usally you can get the India version (which say not to be sold in the US) for about 1/20 of the price granted its a paperback and printed on newspaper like paper but hell, why can't they sell text books like that in the US o thats right $$$$....In my eyes it is just like in China where they sell cheaper DVDs because piracy is so common.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Zanth_]

This is how it worked for me for law school. For certain courses, we were locked into various codes that cost $$$$ but for the most part, students would receive 2-300 pages of "notes" from the professor at the beginning of the year. These notes were exclusively what we needed for the course save for said codes and additional commentaries. The bonus was that the codes and commentaries were useful over the 3 years and for many many courses, not to mention the bar as as reference sources for the future. Yet, in terms of getting that A, one really just needed to master the course notes that were in essence a well layed out text book in most cases. Thankfully these too became wonderful resources. Each student would then be given a bill at the end of the semester letting them know what their cost was. The cost was simply the photocopying cost/printing costs. Though the notes were often available in the library, no student would bother to take them out and go to Mailboxes or something similar because we were getting charged less than going there. Overall it was a very very good way of getting what we needed without screwing us all. When I did genetics and biochemical eng, it was the whole 100+/book, 5-8/semester 3x a year. No thanks. Outrageous with little resale. Bleh. Evil.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[geobeck]

When I did genetics and biochemical eng, it was the whole 100+/book, 5-8/semester 3x a year. No thanks. Outrageous with little resale. Bleh. Evil.

What makes that even worse is when publishers release new editions of a textbook with no real change--except, of course, a greatly modified page number layout. The instructors insist that the students all have the current edition so they can assign chapter questions and readings based on page number, without having to account for multiple editions. At the end of the year, you get left with a textbook you can't sell because you know there is going to be another new edition.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[UserGoogol]

The reason for this is simple. Professors don't look at the price. They are given free copies by the publisher. They don't have to pay for the book, so they don't care what it costs. Likewise, they dont care if a new, completely pointless edition is released, because that just means the publisher sends them a fancy new replacement book.

That's not exactly the whole story. Textbook publishers don't ship old editions of the textbook, so professors have to choose the most recent version of the book or students who buy their textbooks from the school store won't be able to get their books. And since all textbook publishers make new editions as often as they can manage it, there's not a whole lot of point switching to a new textbook just to make used versions slightly easier to find.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[smokeslikeapoet]

My mathematics professor told stories of expensive junkets and lavish gifts textbook publishers bestowed upon her. She was on the curriculum committee which chose the textbooks for the department. Hotel rooms, wine, food all at no cost. For the larger textbook companies that were subsidiaries of major publishers would send her any book she requested, math-related or not from their extensive catalogs. US textbook publishers spend big bucks wooing professors to buy their books and update new editions frequently.

The solution to me would be for the schools to put restrictions on what is appropriate for teachers to receive and punish what is clearly bribery. It seems to me that the student's best interest need to be kept in mind. Most of what I have learned in college I didn't learn though well marketed textbooks. It was learned by diligent research and hard work.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[pimpimpim]

Actually, the university program should be such that you CAN choose your own books. That is what you are supposed to be educated for in the first place, finding and selecting your information. Actually I was once so much frustrated by a course (professor showed sheets with chemical reactions, you were not allowed to copy them, only write them down from the screen), that I decided to just skip the course and learn the same material from textbooks about the subject that were in the library. A course should ideally give the list of information that you are required to know at the end, and then suggestions for the books to buy. Nothing wrong with this approach, and it might open the book market a bit.

Re: This doesn't solve the original problem

[gidds]

Not all new books don't give something useful!

Erm... I don't think that it would be false to say that there wasn't any possibility of failing to misunderstand that double negative.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[rebelcan]

I only see one problem with your "cutting costs" aproach, and that's with cutting sports programs back to intramurals. If you're not in the top ten nationally, it doesn't make sense to cut your sports programs. Then you're just making sure that you'll never be in the top ten nationally.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Frumious Wombat]

Trust me on this; maybe if you're in the top 20, you have a shot of moving up and can justify the expense, but I currently work for a university that had a decent Division 3 basketball team (won often enough to have fans), promoted it, and now has a very expensive, Division 1 doormat. We still don't have a shot at top-10, but we're spending a lot more money not having a shot. University of Vermont took this approach a few years back, and bagged their losing football team. Rutgers has discussed canning their basketball team for the same reason, and frankly many mid-sized schools should; money is not infinite, and a sports program that vastly exceeds what it earns is a bad use of that money. In college, I fenced, friends were in cross-country and track, and people I knew played lacrosse and/or rugby. These are small, low-impact (the Ruggers were an intermural club), high-participation sports that drew decent student audiences and didn't cost a mint to maintain. Most importantly, they got people involved, promoted teamwork and all of the other athletic values, and were open to the entire campus, not just the gladiatorial elite. We were division 3 even in sports we were good at, so no scholarships, no direct athletic recruiting, and a more balanced student-athlete population. Football makes money for about 8-10 universities, and for the rest it's a money pit, both directly, and indirectly in campus security and additional tutoring expenses. It would be better if about 20 schools ran football Div 1, and the rest demoted them to rugby teams. If the teams are so important, maybe schools should band together and sponsor semi-pro teams, separate from the University proper.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[rebelcan]

Ah.

I'm just curious if colleges/universities that never have a chance at the top ten are in that position because all the best atheletes go to those top ten schools, or if they just haven't found a star player/coach/water boy yet.

Basically, are you saying that those schools don't have a snowballs chance in hell at getting into the top ten?

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Frumious Wombat]

Yep. There is a finite amount of top-10 talent out there, and unlike the NBA, it leaves every 4 years, or sooner if a good offer from the pros comes along. So, you have to compete for that pool, and success breeds success, i.e. the talent knows your stats, and is going to go to the schools that win, because that enhances their chances with the pros.

Therefore, unless you have some intangible to offer that will attract a core of decent players and coaches, which will then build up rapidly into a competitive team (you've just incorporated yourself on the california coast, for instance), you're doomed. The classic "big fish in a small pond" sounds great, but only a small percentage of talented people will follow that precept, hence the problem. For college sports players, who have a much shorter shelf-life than professors, it's a very real concern. The scouts aren't watching my school for potential hires, or if they are, they aren't doing it nearly as often as they are Penn State, for instance. If your goal is to play ball for more than your college years, then we're a bad bet, and they're a good one.

You'll see the same problems on the academic side as well; very few professors look at an offer from Harvard and say, "there are too many other high powered people there, I think I'll go to North Dakota State U. where I can dominate the department". The ones that do turn down Harvard go to Stanford, U. Chicago, UT Austin, etc, the rest of the top 10 to 20 instead. They do well there, and play the academic superstart market, and do (financially and famewise) rather well. On the other hand, we've had people do lateral or slight upward moves (same sized U., but in California rather than the frozen NE), but very rarely does anyone start here in the 2nd tier schools, and move up to one of the top 10 or 20. Top 50, maybe, and then they can leverage themselves up another rank later, but it's rare.

So, unless you can hire away a coach and a core of a winning team in one shot, then provide the recruiting muscle to bring in a lot of good but new people fast, you're not going to make it to the upper reaches, because you're going to get squashed, and get a rep as a program that gets squashed. That's why the money spent on Div 1 sports for the schools other than the top few is a losing proposition, because they'll most likely never make it to the ranks that will let them earn back what they put in.

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[rebelcan]

Ah. Everything is made clear now.

Kinda sucks, but it's the only system avaliable right now I guess. You're right, schools that have no hope should start spending money where it might make a difference ( like better training equipment for certain classes ). Then again, that would be breaking from tradition, which I'm pretty sure is frowned upon at most colleges/universities ( unless my mostly-gleaned-from-movies knowledge fails me ).

Re:This doesn't solve the original problem

[Kaboom13]

If you read what I said, you'd understand. You are not "forced" to buy a new textbook, but the stand-alone prices of a used book, plus the clicker codes, plus the homework codes (the codes in use at my uni are one time use and the homework is graded) are almost 3x the price of the "bundle" that comes with a new textbook. Theres no reason for the extra crap to be so expensive, except that the publisher has a complete monopoly on them, and wants to discourage people buying them seperately. You can buy a used book, but you will pay more in the long run, so theres no point. This kills the used market completely, as the pile of used books in the bookstore, completely untouched attest (normally all the used copies available of any book sell out quickly).

Great idea indeed

[MLam]

but how long before this become the mainstream?

Interference

[Anonymous Coward]

So now you have annoying advertisement sin your study book in color 255, 0, 0 or #FF0000 or such to interfere with your studying?
Also will be much larger .pdf file due to the advertisement contained within?

I hope that there is or there will be a PDF viewer where you can change the settings to only display text but not render images...

Re:Interference

[Anonymous Coward]

your study book in color 255, 0, 0 or #FF0000 or such

Now you're just trying too hard to sound geeky. Why can't you just say "red"?

don't know whether to laugh or cry

[geoff lane]

``Hey, I've got an ebook that is difficult to read, let's sell it to students. We'll fix the readability problems later.''

The world is in serious need of open textbooks to put an end to the ripping off of students. This problem existed 30 years ago and so far nothing has been done to prevent the publishers making education more expensive than it need be.

Re:don't know whether to laugh or cry

[AnyoneEB]

The list of completed books is pretty small, but Wikibooks is working on open textbooks. I see they even have PDF version of some of their books. Maybe at some point, it will be reasonable for a professor to use one of those. Then again, it seems like the only time when professors really absolutely require a book is when they assign homework out of it. In that format, it is hard to make the instructor's solution manual difficult to obtain. :)

Saving $$$ on college textbooks isn't hard

[rolfwind]

In college, I always find older editions of books on the internet and save myself a ton of money. For instance, during summer semester, I took the 7th edition psychology textbook instead of the 8th edition. An 8 edition new would have cost me $115, a used one $95 at the campus bookstore. The 7th edition, brand new (sealed) with shipping cost me $9.95. For a lot of classes, that racks up to serious savings. And the only difference is the cover and the color of the layout, all the content is the same. I've seen this where with numerous books which stayed the same content wise for over 6 editions in the row, changing the cover and perhaps the layout just to make it seem different. I compared a old english college textbook (1992) and the new version and all they did was swap 3 out of the 21 essays. That's it.

A word of caution, old editions are a bitch in the rare case that your teacher is a stickler for "homework" problems and collects them (this is more in the lower college classes and a problem if old edition pages don't match up just right and they tend to jumble problems around) and your school library doesn't lend out the new version of the book. It's best to attend the first couple days of class and determine if buying a book at all is necessary (some professors essentially ignore the book for all pratical purpose and test you on their lectures). I can't tell how many times I went to class just to find out that the book is a big waste of money. Especially true if the class is a requirement and you don't give two shits about it.

I even used completely different texts (titles) in Math course where I just find that I prefer one author over another without problems.

Re:Saving $$$ on college textbooks isn't hard

[nexarias]

This is tricky with more cutting edge disciplines though. For example, different editions of a neuroscience textbook will probably hold significantly different content, and the most recent, cutting edge material (new discoveries) are likely those which are debated about in class. For the more "stable" disciplines like Calculus, new editions are probably less necessary.

Re:Saving $$$ on college textbooks isn't hard

[rolfwind]

Agreed, but by the time you get to the cutting edge stuff in the sciences, it is the 3rd or 4th year in most cases so I think it's good advice for most students and still for a lot of classes later on in a lot of disciplines.

In the end, it's best to hold off until after the first class (or week if possible) and see what type of teacher you are getting and what type of work is assigned by the syllabus. For instance, my first programming class (C language), our teacher assigned to us K&R classic but assigned his own homework problems. I checked it out of the University library beforehand and found it way too terse for me (never programmed before then) despite the great hype around it and got along that semester just fine with "C in 21 days" (a much ridiculed series, I know).

I also wanted to amend my original post on this subject. When I said it's not such a good idea if the teacher is a stickler for homework problems, I meant if they assign dozens upon dozens of problems per chapter (like in a math course). Otherwise, an old edition is fine even if the teacher assigns several problems, it's cheaper/easier to lend out the book at the University library and make a photocopy or two of the homework problems.

E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[ctid]

I teach in a university in the UK and I must say that I'm not convinced that electronic books are the best way of reading around a subject for degree-level study. When I'm trying to learn about something that is very new to me, my preferred approach is to work with two or three books which cover the topic. I find the relevant section in each book and keep all the books open at the appropriate pages on the desk in front of me. After a while, I'll normally find that one of the books is easiest for me to understand, so I will focus on that one but refer to the others when I need clarification. If one of the books is not helping at all, I make another trip to the shelves to find something else and see what that can contribute.

I've never been able to replicate this "system" using electronic means and I tend not to try any more. However, my students never seem to try to use books in this way. If they want to find out about something, they type a phrase into Google and then start picking through the thousands of hits they inevitably get (I teach computing). Typically they will give up quickly because the amount of information coming back is overwhelming, but even if they do find something, I'm sure they struggle because it's very hard to take in a lot of information when you're reading it off a screen (I believe that this is less true if you already know something about a topic). Ironically, the only complaint we regularly get about our classes is that the library is not helpful, even though we have bought literally hundreds of titles in the last couple of years. We now believe that most of our new students have never used a library before they come to the university, so we're going to actually show them how we go about learning new things using books. Not sure how we're going to do that!

I think I've rambled off the topic a bit here; I think my point is that I would discourage my students from buying electronic books in general. As a university lecturer, I think it's my responsibility to: (a) Recommend the minimum possible number of books for purchase (usually one per module); (b) Ensure that there is a good variety of relevant books in the library; (c) Encourage my students to actually use the library when their Googling fails them.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, multiple windows?

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[Anonymous Coward]

We now believe that most of our new students have never used a library before they come to the university, so we're going to actually show them how we go about learning new things using books. Not sure how we're going to do that!

When I started grad school in '64 (certified old fart here), everyone had a one semester course in using the library for research.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[Baavgai]

For those of us who grew up with nice, comfortable, dead trees, nothing will every really replace the feeling of hefting them.

However, younger folks seem far more at comfortable with reading from a screen. Don't assume that the media will necessarily be an issue for most new students. The issue is primarily one of format.

If an electronic resource is presented in such a way as to be easily navigated, then it is superior to it's printed counterpart in may ways. Being able to search an entire book with a click is invaluable.

I have PDF and print versions of many technically references. The PDFs get opened first at which point the paper is usually only for browsing.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[Scarblac]

We now believe that most of our new students have never used a library before they come to the university, so we're going to actually show them how we go about learning new things using books. Not sure how we're going to do that!

Perhaps you can get some inspiration from Adler and Van Doren's _How To Read a Book_? I read it after finishing my master's, and believe that it would have helped to read parts of it at the beginning instead.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[owlstead]

I do think that many older people lack sufficient internet skills though. There is a lot of good information on the internet, especially about IT. Many books are available online from many brilliant authors. Electronic form also has a lot of advantages, such as easy searching and copying of code. Within the company I am known for finding almost any information needed on the internet. My reading speed and handling of google as well as knowing where to search (standard bodies etc) makes sure that most of the time I find the info I am looking for.

I do agree that there is still a lot to be desired about screens though. If I would be able to buy 2 relatively cheap, high res e-Readers using eInk technology (with a touch-screen for adding remarks), this problem would be solved. For reading quality, books still easily outperform screens, especially if you also use the screen for coding. Also, although much information is readily found on the internet, it doesn't always get as much attention (from other authors and/or editors) as a good book. That said, if you lack book-searching skills, you are as likely to find an outdated book that is simply wrong as finding a misleading internet page.

Once I got a computer science course that required us to buy a book. The teacher admitted that he read the book in about 3 hours during the summer vacation (thus after requiring us to buy the book), and said he did not think much of it. At least you have read the books that you require your students to read. But if you require them to buy three books while only regularly using one, you might have some angry students as well.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[ctid]

Thanks very much for this recommendation. I've had a look at the reviews on Amazon and I've ordered a couple of copies for the library at work.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[ctid]

I have PDF and print versions of many technically references. The PDFs get opened first at which point the paper is usually only for browsing.

I'm 43 and I recognize that I have grown up with books and that I am comfortable using them. However, I've been playing around with computers for more than half of my life and I've been on the web since the start, so I'm used to reading stuff off a screen. My views on paper vs screen are based somewhat on the sheer shallowness of my students' approach to learning. I can't help feeling that they don't concentrate enough when they are trying to get information from a screen. It's unusual to see a student spend a significant time staring at a document on a screen, for instance. They tend to search for something else before they will scroll through the document they have already opened. On the other hand of course, they have no idea how to get information from a book.

I'm aware that much of what I'm saying is impressionistic - I've certainly never measured any of this stuff - but introducing my students to another source (ie books) must be better than what they are doing now.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[pipingguy]

If an electronic resource is presented in such a way as to be easily navigated, then it is superior to it's printed counterpart in may ways. Being able to search an entire book with a click is invaluable.

Agreed, but as you mentioned, there's nothing like the heft and feel of a real paper hardback (with included post-it notes, highlighting, bookmarks and scribbling of course). People that truly know the contents and subject matter of a particular reference book usually can flip to the appropriate page in seconds. Random access via software is nice, but I always wonder and worry about the depth and breadth of knowledge that results from this method of information access.

A crude example: "plug part A into slot B. But not before part C is attached. See appendix for full explanation.".

Jumping to the quick, but incomplete answer is far too easy to resist for some students, and sometimes complicated subjects are intentionally obfuscated in order to ensure that the full material is read and understood.

ASME and related codes are like this; there is often no strict yes/no answer.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[Name Anonymous]

After a while, I'll normally find that one of the books is easiest for me to understand, so I will focus on that one but refer to the others when I need clarification.

I did the same thing using two calculus books. The two books were complementary to each other as they each explained different things better.

Nowadays with computer stuff, one book usually for the main reference and then look up stuff online if more detail is needed.

And it's still faster skimming through a printed book to find things than searching online in a lot of cases. Also highlighters don't work well on a screen.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[Anonymous Coward]

A crude example: "plug part A into slot B. But not before part C is attached. See appendix for full explanation.".

If there's a hyperlink to it, I'll read the appendix. Flip around a book? Probably not.

And your suggestion to learn entire textbooks is pretty ridiculous - you tend to only need a couple of chapters at most. If you take decent notes in the lectures you'll probably only need the books as a reference for when the lecturer isn't clear enough.
Not that I won't read a textbook if I'm interested - but 80% of any degree is tedious crap like thermodynamics so you can understand interesting stuff like astronomy.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[IllogicalStudent]

Don't blame the students for not having used a library prior to university. Highschools aren't demanding it. Nor are they demanding anything more than the most cursory of reference lists -- usually a list of untitled URLs, or even better, "References: Google search term '$terms'". Footnotes or in-line citations are not to be spoken of. It's silly. What the hell are they teaching in English these days? I've TA'd the 100-level course in the undergraduate program for the past 3 years while completing my graduate degree; the first two weeks of lab hours is literally hand-holding the buggers showing them how to find stuff in a library (it's so amusing how difficult they find the LoC indexing system) and how to properly cite things to avoid academic plagarism. Damage control. If it weren't so bloody necessary, it'd be a total waste of time.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[will592]

If you think there is any chance that you will ever learn Astronomy without understanding thermodynamics I feel very sorry for you.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[Baavgai]

I can't help feeling that they don't concentrate enough when they are trying to get information from a screen.

Ah! This I understand, and agree. I don't see that the media of presentation will have any real impact on these practices. You're dealing with behaviors deeply ingrained, fed by many factors. Personally, I blame cell phones... ;)

Of course, being forced to thoroughly read information in an electronic format could help develop that concentration. Ok, wishful thinking, but still.

I'm 37, btw. I do recall when information was gleaned from manuals written by technical writers with little interest in instructing lay humans. I also remember computer magazines that contained more code than ads or product reviews combined. When I talk to a younger programmers about stacks and pointers and memory allocation, eyes glaze. Of course, the past also had Archie, Gopher, and CompuServe; the little ARPA net is far more interesting now.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[Nimey]

FWIW, I've had the most success with a 100x43 (800x600 @85 Hz framebuffer with Terminus font) terminal reading an HTML E-book with lynx. Very readable.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[symbolic]

I have PDF and print versions of many technically references. The PDFs get opened first at which point the paper is usually only for browsing.

One thing to keep in mind with respect to PDF...since it is an electronic format, there are means available to enforce certain licensing restrictions...up to and including "phoning home" whenever the document is opened/read/whatever. I don't say this to deride the PDF format, because it has proven very useful. People should be aware, however, of the various ways that it can be used.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[geminidomino]

For those of us who grew up with nice, comfortable, dead trees, nothing will every really replace the feeling of hefting them.

True, but shoulder-replacement surgery might come close... ouch... Now I know I'm too old to have gone back to school.

Calc II - 15 lbs.
Discrete Math I - 20 lbs.
Object Oriented Programming #1- 9 lbs
Object Oriented Programming #2- 6 lbs
Notebooks, calculators, etc... - 5 lbs.
Walking with a tilt the rest of your bloody natural life: priceless.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[geminidomino]

Adler and Van Doren's _How To Read a Book_?

You know, I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about a book called "How to Read a book" just makes me want to laugh my ass off...

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[Gryle]

Speaking as a college student, I don't want electronic textbooks. I'd prefer paper-and-ink, despite the expense. Because of my already bad eyesight, I try to limit the amount of time to avoid eyestrain. A standard semester requires (based on personal experience) 4-5 hours of reading per class session. I find my eyes to be much less tired after 4-5 hours of reading paper-and-ink than after 4-5 hours of reading text from a screen. My concern is with annotation. I underline and highlight sections of text and scribble notes in the margins of the pageswould be annotation. Is there a program that allows for similar use of an e-book?

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[Anonymous Coward]

The uni I went to in Australia had obviously run into similar problems (students not using the library), and so we had a number of assignments which required sources from both deadtree books and online journals. Of course, there were compulsory lessons on how to use libraries first, taken by the librarians.

Seemed to work well, and I even ended up using a method similar to yours for the more technical parts of my degree (Computer Systems).

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[DeadChobi]

I find that the major contributing factor to the uselessness of online print is that, with my CRT, reading a book off my screen is like staring at a light-bulb for hours. In High School the CRTs would also give me refresh-headaches. The major problem I have with PDFs is that I can't change the color of the background or the text color or both to make it more comfortable for my eyes. Every single website, document, PDF, ebook, and even information dialogue assumes that the screen is EXACTLY LIKE THE PRINT WORD IN EVERY WAY. It conveniently ignores the fact that displays are light-colored instead of pigment-colored and that bright white tends to drown out the sharpness of lettering whereas white letters on black tends to be very easy on the eyes.

And yes, even in a well-lit room I have to take eye-breaks when I'm reading using a computer. This is not so in print.

Re:E-books are not ideal for degree level study

[kabocox]

Ironically, the only complaint we regularly get about our classes is that the library is not helpful, even though we have bought literally hundreds of titles in the last couple of years. We now believe that most of our new students have never used a library before they come to the university, so we're going to actually show them how we go about learning new things using books. Not sure how we're going to do that!

You may not like hearing this. I only had to actually "use" a library twice in highschool. Once for some english paper when I was a senior that was basically look up all the facts on the field that you are interested in. The other was a biology paper that had to be 10 pages long and include 10 sources. In college, I think that I only that to use the library for 1 paper and that was mainly looking up info. for a professor for his paper. I did use the college library for a reference book every now and then. I can't say that I'm surprised that you are finding that alot of people "don't know" how to use the library. Most students have never "needed" to use the library. Of course we've always had 2-3 different "iibrary" education classes at different points, but that was just basic exerices in looking things up and was usually a 2-3 days out of an English class. We just didn't need to go to the library for any of our normal school work other than a quiet place to work. I actually think libraries are useful, but our current method of education doesn't require the student ever to use them so why should our students develop that skill?

You could also apply the same logic to writing papers. Students generally don't have to write papers so of course our skills and knowledge of writing researched papers are lacking. What we are shown is how to test out at multiple choice tests and the occasional fill in the blank test so the last 2 generations have basically been educated to fill out forms. I actually hated writing any form of paper, but I didn't have to do many of them. If I had to do one a week in junior high or high school, I'd still not like them, but I'd atleast be able to crank them out if needed.

The importance of education

[Colin Smith]

Interesting that it's seen as a source of cost cutting in the US.

Still. Be happy. The world is happy to continue loaning you the money needed to buy their products. Don't you worry yourself about paying it back.

Re:The importance of education

[drphilngood]

I can't, for the life of me, understand why this was modded "informative".

New math

[Anonymous Coward]

Among the sponsors are McDonalds, who bought the value for the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, which will be known as McPi.

"learn-about-napolean-..."

[Anonymous Coward]

from the learn-about-napolean-and-the-delicious-taste-of-co ke dept.

Can't you people spell Napoleon? And to think some readers here pay for content of such quality...

used texts increase the price of new texts

[TubeSteak]

Professors, however, are not blind to the shocking prices of new textbooks. Nor are they deaf to the complaining voices of their students. They know that students increasingly buy used textbooks, and that this in turn affects the prices on new texts that sit unsold on the shelves.

Riiiight...

There's two different people selling books:
Publisher ---> College Book Store
College Book Store ---> Student

If the publisher is losing sales to used books, the book store could easily absorb any publisher price hike, considering that the book store is selling the used texts and is part of the publisher's problem.

My guess is that being in the textbook business is like being a utility company. You get to ignore normal market dynamics and act as if your minimum profit margin is enshrined in law.

There's really no incentive for anyone other than the student to act in a rational manner.

Textbooks are pretty much a scam anyway...

[IICV]

Undergraduate textbooks are nothing more than a scam. Calculus, physics, chemistry and biology on such a basic level have not changed significantly in the past decade; why do I have to buy books which were printed this year?

Oh, right, because the problems that are assigned out of the book get shuffled every printing by magical pixies. Literally shuffled; in one of my recent classes, the professor would assign the (optional) homework out of the seventh edition of the text, but also had a list of where the exact same problems were in the sixth and fifth. I checked with one of the older editions in the library, and aside from the color scheme this was the only change. The explanations were all the same, which is a good thing since I'd hate to think our fundamental understanding of the principles of vector calculus had changed so quickly.

I've actually had a couple professors talk about this; apparently, such decisions are usually made by the department heads, and the people teaching the class just go with it - not that it's just the higher-ups getting kickbacks. Publishers drop old editions like hot potatos; in another of my classes, the professor refused to move on to the sixth edition and taught out of the fifth, because apparently they'd swapped some of the chapters around and he didn't want to deal with it. Even though the sixth edition had been released that same year, people had so much trouble finding copies of it he eventually gave up and published an equivalence guide. This was in a course where the material didn't quite need to be taught in order, which is probably why they didn't just stop at the homework problems.

Anyway, in order to keep this 3:00 am post from being completely offtopic: there is absolutely no reason at all for anyone to charge money for textbooks in the first place, much less put ads in them. The basic principles have been known for longer than anyone currently in college has been alive; all that really needs to happen is for some philanthropist to fund writers who are good at writing teaching texts, and then release that into the public domain - and don't talk about those open textbooks, I doubt any professor will teach out of something without officious credentials.

Now I'm hallucinating bugs crawling on my legs. Or at least I hope I'm hallucinating. Either way, it's time for sleep.

Re:Textbooks are pretty much a scam anyway...

[Frumious Wombat]

While I hate to disagree with you, in many fields of science, the changes over a decade are significant, and merit new editions. I just selected a book this year for a junior-level class which I generally like (rigorous in areas that other texts dumb-down), but that has some seriously ... Wrong material. Explanations and models from the era of Nehru jackets and mutton-chop side-burns, and just as relevant to modern science. That book needs a thorough revision that doesn't ruin it like happened to my preferred text. Third edition, clean, clear, if a bit mathematical and tough-sledding at times. Fourth edition tried to become "student-friendly" and "relevant", and made it muddy, choppy, and unreadable.

In math, you may be right, but in chemistry/physics/biology, especially when you consider that the people writing textbooks tend to be late in their career, a revision once every five to 10 years is certainly within reason.

Re:Textbooks are pretty much a scam anyway...

[coyotecult]

Er, biology is changing very, very fast right now, to the point where even some of the basic material has probably altered.

Re:Textbooks are pretty much a scam anyway...

[geminidomino]

Literally shuffled; in one of my recent classes, the professor would assign the (optional) homework out of the seventh edition of the text, but also had a list of where the exact same problems were in the sixth and fifth.

"Calculus" by Larson, Hostetler, and Edwards, by any chance?

I can see it already...

[Chaffar]

- For an explanation of Markowitz's portfolio theory click here [user clicks] - But first! ... A word from our sponsors...

Where is the 'information wants to be free' crowd?

[Anonymous Coward]

If anything, this should be right up their alley. Educational textbooks should be the embodiment of the free and open crowd, yet I don't see any serious initiatives to start such a project. Could you imagine being able to download digital textbooks as easily as using apt-get repositories? Are there even such people who would be willing to take up such a task as contributing texts and essays which they have written about their field of expertise?

Not only that, but could such texts pass the grade in an institution of higher learning, or do the official publishing cabals have their fingers too deeply entrenched in the pockets of academia? The internet age has given us the ability to reach out to people across the globe in mere miliseconds. Search engines are teeming with endless sources of information. Yet for all this information floating around, we're still paying $100-200 for a single math textbook... Something isn't right here.

Water, water everywhere...but not a drop to drink

It depends on the subject - and the students

[njdj]

Talk to any student about the price of the college textbooks, and you're likely to hear similar complaints

I wonder if the person who wrote that has talked to enough students.

On my desk is the 3rd edition of "Classical Electrodynamics", by J. D. Jackson. This title has been the standard text for advanced classical electromagnetism for about 40 years. The 2nd edition came out in 1974, and the 3rd edition (the latest) in 1998.

The book is a sturdy hardback, designed for decades of use. I still use it occasionally, and I have a PhD in Physics. It's priced at $97 direct from Amazon, or "Used and new from $55" from Amazon's resellers. This is cheap for such a book.

Any student who thinks he/she can afford an iPod, but not a book like this, has got seriously screwed-up priorities.

Re:It depends on the subject - and the students

[lachlan76]

You don't need to buy new iPods anywhere near as often as you need to buy textbooks however.

Re:It depends on the subject - and the students

[Shemmie]

On my desk is the 3rd edition of "Classical Electrodynamics", by J. D. Jackson. This title has been the standard text for advanced classical electromagnetism for about 40 years. The 2nd edition came out in 1974, and the 3rd edition (the latest) in 1998.

That's fantastic. If you could just point me in the direction of a book on computing that has only had three editions published in 40 years, I'd be grateful.

Oddly, I can't find a 40 year old book on .Net Framework 2.0, neural networks, object orientated programming, principles of HCI... well, you get the idea. And I very much doubt the majority of my current computing textbooks will be of much use to me in 5 years, let alone 40.

Re:It depends on the subject - and the students

[tomjen]

The problems with the textbooks is that you need to buy new editions constantly - not because they are better but because they change the order of the homework assignments. Same with the Texas calculators that you have to use in Highschool math (in Denmark anyway). Every two years new features are added to then and math teachers buy require the use of the new version - even if these features where not needed.

I dont mind paying for good books, but I mind paying for a scam.

Re:It depends on the subject - and the students

[Anonymous Coward]

When you are spending 500-1000 a semster on books, and most of them are not worth keeping, I am frankly pissed. I have to take loans to get these books, as most others do. Not to mention, if I need anything later, I can goto the library. Im sure your coveted book is there!

Re:It depends on the subject - and the students

[civilizedINTENSITY]

"Any student who thinks he/she can afford an iPod, but not a book like this, has got seriously screwed-up priorities."

Agreed, there are few textbooks with the authority or staying power of Jackson (or Goldstein for mechanics, or Golub for matrix computation). However, while your evaluation of values is fine as far as it goes, when purchasing 4 books (or more) each semester, your model breaks. Should the point of higher education be "how much $$$ can we squeeze from our students this semester?"

Re:It depends on the subject - and the students

[gsn]

Unfair example using Jackson as an illustration of low version numbers.

No complaints about the price of Jackson or any of my physics textbooks. I buy the hardback ones used from Amazon or Abebooks. I'm keeping all of them and I want them to last. I atually buy some Indian textbooks for friends when I go back home every other year but they tend to fall apart at the seams during the semester. I wish all of them were hardback - Misner, Thorne, Wheeler isn't and its like Jackson for GR.

The point about the low version numbers with Jackson is not even he reads it which is why we have such few editions. Its sort of the trial by fire as you enter grad school. Occasionally you can look up stuff and I was using it look up skin depth yesterday with the talk about RF shielding. All the stuff I'd really want from Jackson are "the proof is left as an exercise to the reader." I've been taught EM by two generations of professors and they both used Jackson when they were grad students. And they both hate it.

There is certainly a lot of editions with something like Young and Freedman (upto v.11) or Serway and (Faughn|Bichner|Jewitt) (upto 6 I think) and the only thing that ever changes is the problems and page numbers. That said I don't really consider these physics books - I hate the intro physics plug and chug philosophy and whats with the ridiculous colour figures with smiling kids - black and (white|blue) figures with terse captions or none at all! That will lower the price!

Re:It depends on the subject - and the students

[will592]

You know what's interesting? I also have the 3rd Edition of Jackson and it's the one book I've been thinking about while reading this whole article. I took electrodynamics in 1998 so you can guess which version I have. I remember my professors reluctantly switching to the 3rd edition after waiting many, many years for some mistakes to be corrected in the 2nd edition. That book brings back some of my most painful memories of grad school!

Re:It depends on the subject - and the students

[gardyloo]

You don't need to buy new iPods anywhere near as often as you need to buy textbooks however.

    You do if you keep trying to flush them down airplane toilets!

Re:It depends on the subject - and the students

[toddestan]

Well, obviously there are subjects where a new addition every year or two is appropiate. That doesn't excuse the textboox publishers from constantly coming out with new additions for subjects that haven't changed in decades, or even centuries.

Re:It depends on the subject - and the students

[geminidomino]

Not to mention they refuse to let you go right to the top of the pile. =\

My B.S. CompSci program is quite math-heavy (so much so that it's an automatic minor), so I figured, what the hell. I'm going to use this Calculator for the whole time, and get into some heavy crap, so I might as well get the TI-89 (I admit, the drooly-geek factor played a part in this decision). Turns out, Calc won't let me use it because of its "advanced" functions. Now I've got to use a 10-year-old TI-85, or do it all by hand, since I can't afford to shell out for another calculator just for this semester (I've opted for the latter, BTW).

I think that's crap. If you've gotten to Calculus II, no calculator or even a full-blown computer is going to help you if you don't understand what's going on.

Re:It depends on the subject - and the students

[Dhalka226]

Well, obviously there are subjects where a new addition every year or two is appropiate.

New edition, or new addition? Or new textbook?

Obviously, technology changes fast enough that it might be that a new textbook (that is, a book on a different subject) is required. For example, my school recently replaced C++ with Java for their programming courses. If a new technology takes off today, it may be that in two or three years that the class might change focus and need a new book altogether.

But I'm not sure things change so dramatically that a new edition is needed every year or two, or even every five (more than that is probably okay). I think that a lot of those changes can be incorporated more easily, and certainly more cheaply, by instructors simply revising their curriculum a little bit. Is something in your book obsolete? Don't teach it the next year. Something new has cropped up that your book doesn't even touch? Print off a copy of an article online or draw something up yourself to give to your students. Or alternately, since colleges are also trying to get professors to stop copying so much, give students a URL to something online for the new material. If they want to print it, they're welcome to do so and if not, it's there anyway.

I only think new editions should be necessary when there is nearly as much supplementary material and obsolete material as there is material in the book that is actually being covered. Then you need a new book. If the book is greatly improved, that may also be a reason to change but that seems like a rare phenomena. Other than that, changing more than once every five years or so seems downright wrong, and even five years may be wasteful.

Re:It depends on the subject - and the students

[NeoSkandranon]

The problem is, for ever 100 dollar book that's a valuable reference in the field as you mention, there's six or eight that cost at least as much that are totally worthless.

I just finished up a computer engineering degree, and all of my books but a few were badly written, from general chemistry on up to device electronics. Thankfully i was able to sell most of them back, and keep the couple I wanted to use as reference.

Re:It depends on the subject - and the students

[kabocox]

The book is a sturdy hardback, designed for decades of use. I still use it occasionally, and I have a PhD in Physics. It's priced at $97 direct from Amazon, or "Used and new from $55" from Amazon's resellers. This is cheap for such a book.

Any student who thinks he/she can afford an iPod, but not a book like this, has got seriously screwed-up priorities.

I spent about $300 a semester on books. I kept nearly all of it on a just in case note. Though you are talking about keeping the main reference work in your field for decades that is respectable and understandable. What about composition I & II or World History, or American History, or World Lit or other gen ed classes like the PE/Health book? Do those things really need to cost $60-70 each? Basic science texts are the worst. Biology, Chemistry, Physics 101 texts are all $100. The good news is that they are genearlly 2 semester texts. The bad news is they aren't really designed for long term use or to be kept by the average college student. I believe that part of the college experience/education was collecting text books and building personal library. I'm not really thrilled with texts of Biology, Chemistry, or Physics in my home library, but I'm not about to rush out and spend $300 dollars picking out 3 replacement texts. I'd be willing to spend $25-45 on good long term books, but I don't have the income to book $100 books.

i don't know

[ImTheDarkcyde]

ever since grade school, there has always been product placement in every one of my text books (except science, which always uses stuff like 'cola' or 'orange juice' brand colas and orange juices)

So no, i wouldn't mind an actual ad every here and then.

Re:i don't know

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no doubt that this is the result of advertisers understanding that you have to get people to slowly accept advertising in places where they were previously banned. Schools started with vending machines, then to sports signage, and then had restaurant food in the cafeteria.

The NFL is aware of this slow acceptance as well. They are moving toward pay-to-watch they are selecting one or two games per season. It won't be long, though, and it will be half of the games.

And we don't even need to mention how we accept this with our rights.

so long as there is choice

[eneville]

It's not so bad, while we have choice to go and buy books which are clean of adverts, and it's not like the text book is the ONLY source of information for these students. I firmly believe that marketing scum should be shut down like this. It really is just shoving their cock down the throats of students.

rip me plenty!

[vogon jeltz]

I never understood why textbooks have to change content every two years. Methods for solving differential eqs. or teaching history is kind of static really, nothing ever changes. The profs at my uni (mechanical engineering, Darmstadt, Germany) either provide affordable self authored scripts in dead tree form or, even better, pdfs. The only time I actually did buy a textbook was for fliud dynamics and this one was worth every penny (I keep it under my pillow).

Illegal in Belgium

[lowieken]

In Belgium, ad supported textbooks are illegal. Any publicity/sponsoring in education is illegal, in all three language communities, which is where the responsibility for education lies.

This is part of the very broad consensus in our country that education is a public good. Messing with that is guaranteed to get all kinds of people really angry.

Re:Illegal in Belgium

[Distinguished Hero]

If I were you, I would not be bragging about how my country's government punishes people for writing or publishing books. Just saying...

Re:Illegal in Belgium

[Lord_Dweomer]

"In Belgium, ad supported textbooks are illegal. Any publicity/sponsoring in education is illegal, in all three language communities, which is where the responsibility for education lies. This is part of the very broad consensus in our country that education is a public good. Messing with that is guaranteed to get all kinds of people really angry."

Welcome to America where children get ad-supported text books and advert-news from Channel One.

Re:Illegal in Belgium

[Yusaku Godai]

I certainly would, in this case. You make it sound like it's completely arbitrary.
I, for one, agree wholeheartedly with this law.

Re:Illegal in Belgium

[Yusaku Godai]

Oh god, that sounds horrible D:

When I was in school we had a morning television broadcast, but it was produced entirely by students in-school. It was kind of stupid much of the time, but it had its moments, and at the very least was locally relevany and ad-free. Plus, teachers were by no means required to show it.

But I'm glad to know about this...if I ever have kids I'll want to make sure not to send them to a school where this kind of crap is going on.

Re:Illegal in Belgium

[shadowbearer]

  In that case, you may want to watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfRUMmTs0ZA

  (20/20's comparison of American education with Belgium education) ...

  Seems to me that they are doing it right over in Belgium. Kudos to them, seems their laws/system aren't hampering their education system much, not like ours here in the US.

SB

Re:Illegal in Belgium

[shadowbearer]

Can we borrow your politicians for a while? We need them to come over to the US and kick some people where it hurts ;-)

SB

Re:Illegal in Belgium

[Anonymous Coward]

In Belgium, ad supported textbooks are illegal. Any publicity/sponsoring in education is illegal

That sounds very civilized but here in the USA we have Republicans. Their overriding goal is to keep all their money to buy a new SUV every year. Starving children? Tough. Crappy schools? Not my problem.

Re:Illegal in Belgium

[Anonymous Coward]

In Belgium, ad supported textbooks are illegal. Any publicity/sponsoring in education is illegal

That sounds very civilized but here in the USA we have Republicans.

Threatening people with violence, simply because they peacefully sold textbooks, is civilized? Sounds pretty barbaric to me.

Schools as much to blame as the plublishers

[Anonymous Coward]

The schools could easily standardize a large number of undergraduate courses on a short list of approved textbook editions and stock their campus bookstores with sufficient quantities to last for several years, while taking into account the used book market. The fact that they don't do this reveals their corrupt relationship with the book publishers.

With the barbaric sums of money students are already paying for their education, there is no need for the schools to make another killing on the books.

The schools are every bit as crooked as the book publishers.

and that's not all...

[redalien]

When I was in school, we changed from normal exercise books to using "Jazzybooks" that were 1/8th of the length, and ad supported. Veyr unpopular move with the students but saved the school loads.

Textbooks are for sissies...

[vlad_io]

Real students just google for the information they have to learn.

CHM versus PDF no comparison - I have thousands!

[Anonymous Coward]

CHM versus PDF : no comparison - I have thousands of textbooks and technical books in both formats!

FASTER, RESIZABLE (paragraphs reflow automatically), ZOOMABLE graphics and charts, FONT SELECTION, and fully hyperlinked internally to all indexed items.

CHM is supported on all major OSses, and opens 10 times faster or more, than any large PDF opens.

CHM is a native file type supported by MS Windows (part of MS Help services), and is merely a single compressed web site.

On Macs and Linux free CHM viewers exist. They are trivial to write from scratch if an OS has HTML rendering services.

on alt.binaries.ebook.technical thousands of textbooks and nonfiction books are shared every week. well over 100,000 unique titles per year for review on that usenet group. No joke. Every type of non fiction imaginable. Every branch of science, every engineering book, every computer book.

And all the PDFs suck even on a 1600 pixel wide screen, but all of the CHM books are a pleasure and joy to read.

The speed, the fonts, the ability to read on a hand held PDA, etc etc.

PDF has ponly one good use... large ornate glossy magazines (gamer magazines, fashion magazines, etc).

There is no comparison. PDF is user hostile in almost every respect. Even on a Mac OSX which has special hyper optimized PDF rendering by apple. PDF is total crap.

PDF harms the adoption of ebooks. CHM is a wonderful solution.

Please mod this up someone, not one person seems to understand the point of the article (complaint over PDF format)

I obviously had to post anon.

Its not so bad

[JustOK]

I really think that [Drink Coke] anything that improves [Save on Laptops at Dell.ca] what we are teaching the next generations [Shop at Walmart] is a good thing. If ads help in the production [/\/\cDonald's] of the text books, and to keep costs down [Amazon.ca] so that more people [NetFlix] can be better learnerers [HeadOn. Apply directly to the forehead] is a GOOD THING.

The conundrum of business and price...

[ursabear]

I sort of felt that adverts would eventually appear in textbooks (probably even off-the-shelf "entertainment" books, too). I think businesses are looking to keep their bottom line fluid and in the black. I don't know if the advert trend is a good or bad thing.

The advert idea popping up all over: my local grocery now has little ad placards in the aisles (that have nothing to do with any of the products in the store, like wireless companies); I daresay most of us have seen the non-movie adverts in movies (both on disc and in the theater); and ads on non-related product packaging.

The conundrum for the consumer is that the advertising doesn't necessarily (and often doesn't) lower the price of the item. The adverts just make more money for the vendor of the space of the advert. Business is always trying new things (that's generally good), but the trend for advert insertion isn't necessarily anything much fun for consumers.

Imagine the implications...

[Deanodriver]

They would have to control what advertisements are allowed in what textbook, otherwise, who knows what could end up in them? Imagine a church group advertising in an evolution textbook, for example...

I'm crying

[tomstdenis]

... because god forbid our children [and yes that includes college kids] actually LEARN A DAMN THING. Let's make more money, take take take, and now let's be even more invasive.

It's already hard enough to motivate kids to study. Now they'll have ads bothering them? I really fear for the future.

Any smart professors would just change their teaching style to avoid text books as much as possible [hint: there are usually other books on any given topic outside the mainstream academia].

Tom

Re:I'm crying

[geminidomino]

I always wondered about that. I'd love to find a prof teaching technical courses out of ORA books. They're cheaper than just about all textbooks, and worlds better than most.

Re:I'm crying

[Krakhan]

That happens with my University. For some courses, instead of just forcing a student to buy a $120 textbook, they'll usually just make course notes. The amount of material they contain works quite well, and for only $15-$25 CDN.

Otherwise, if it's required, some profs will vehemently be opposed to it, and just suggest to use it in the library if you need it. This was the case I had with one prof. who absolutely hated the Linear Algebra textbook that was assigned for the two courses. After taking those two courses, I can easily see why, since it doesn't even work well for the applications, since there's no point in doing tons of applications if you skimp out on the theory.

Well, that's my take anyways. I got a replacement text that's used in the advanced sections, and I've been satisfied with it, since it did help me out a lot with my future courses.

Re:CHM versus PDF no comparison - I have thousands

[tomstdenis]

Troll.

The purpose of PDF is PORTABLE. How do you know your platform has the right [and exact] copies of the font(s) required to render that document?

At least with a PS or PDF output I know I'm set. PDF documents can have text, as in literal strings not bitmaps, and in Adobe they CAN reflow [I've done it on a PocketPC for instance].

Tom

Meh

[porcupine8]

I actually have the option of downloading a textbook for a class this fall for free. I'm buying the book. Reading long text on a computer screen just doesn't work for me, and printing out 372 pages seems silly. Besides which, it's a class directly related to my field which means I'll likely want to keep the book for future reference - so I'll want a bound copy that will stay readable over time.

Of course, it helps that the bound copy of this particular book is under $20 at Amazon. If this were one of the $100 textbooks and weren't available used, I may actually say screw it, I'll use a ream of paper and a couple ink cartridges printing it out and get a nice binder for it.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, heh, heh....You're in for a surprise. The books that you have in your field of study is outdated and useless after you start your new career (unless it's math because that never changes). Good luck!

Finally, a better way to tap into young minds

[dino213b]

Some morbid examples of ad-supported textbooks from an alternate dimension:

- Constantinople finally fell in 1453 at hands of non-believers. Romans and Christians wept and were helped by MyTissueCompany (tm). Would you like to learn more? See www.MyTissueCompany.com/sucker for great savings on scented and colored tissues.

- The theory of evolution is a curriculum requirement for our school district; these are the obligatory 40 words we have to include in talking about it. To see the path of the truth visit Jack's Corner Bible Store at www.jackscornerbiblestore.com/convert.

- Derivative of a known function f() is defined as f'() = limit of (f(x+h) - f(x) / h) as h approaches 0. Derivative of sin(x) is cos(x). Derivative of sin^-1(x) is 1 / sqrt(1 - x^2). Have problems memorizing equations? Have better things to do than study on a Saturday night, such as hanging out with your bros? Beat all tests and defeat all cheat detection methods for $49.99. Guaranteed! See www.ProfessorsAreDumbWhenItComesToTechnology.com/ now!!!!

I'd use this service...

[vistic]

Heck this is my last semester before graduation. I'm only taking four classes. And when I bought books this semester it came to about $410. That's a rip-off.

Capitalism obviously has precedence

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been spreading the word about capitalism in education for years, on my own accord!
I even went as far as to obtain books... does anyone know of a good auto feed scanner?
Power to free education and utopia! America, "Your going the wrong way". I might have
to quit if things don't change. Maybe I'll move to Antartica, where the beer flows like wine.

Did anybody mention wikibooks > Paperback binding machines ?

Why do we still lack electronic books?

[cubicledrone]

What is the problem, precisely? Are we so fucked up? So utterly incapable of bringing a fucking product to market that we can't figure out a way to manufacture a piece of portable hardware that allows people to read books from a screen? I mean yeah, I know we can't get back to the moon, and can't provide for ourselves and have to borrow money to have kitchen appliances shipped 10,000 miles so we have something to put on the shelves but are we so bereft of vision that we can't build a simple book reader? Is it really that much more complicated than say, a calculator?

Actually I know the problem is some rat fuck middle manager with his donut stuffed ass wedged into the org chart between the guy that has ALREADY INVENTED THIS PRODUCT and the people that can approve manufacturing it. In fact the guy that has already invented this product was probably fired and is sitting at a sandwich shop someplace studying for his real estate exam.

Want proof that middle management consists of 99% lying rat fucks? We don't have an electronic book reader. We can't bring this product to market. We couldn't do it if we wanted to. The rat fucks win again. There you go.

Re:Why do we still lack electronic books?

[randomforumposter178]

they actually have several e-book readers at market, and a lot of the old PDAs serve that Purpouse. of course, the problem is that no one buys them.

Re:Why do we still lack electronic books?

[cubicledrone]

they actually have several e-book readers at market

Who? Where? When? We get one announcement and not another word. They are the only product that gets one ad. One.

the problem is that no one buys them

The problem is that no one markets them. See "rat fuck middle manager" for the reason.

This is an easily solved problem. With 10% of the money spent on one video game console manufacturing upgrade we could give everyone free ebook readers.

Re:Why do we still lack electronic books?

[geminidomino]

With 10% of the money spent on one video game console manufacturing upgrade we could give everyone free ebook readers.

Except that the money you'd be taking 10% of comes out of the manufacturer's pockets.

Now, if you were to take 20% of the money spent on stupid "OMG! Video games are t3h EVIL!!!" legislation and lawsuits, you'd be in the same spot.

Re:Why do we still lack electronic books?

[Anonymous Coward]

So utterly incapable of bringing a fucking product to market that we can't figure out a way to manufacture a piece of portable hardware that allows people to read books from a screen?

The product didn't make it to market because it died in user testing. They couldn't figure out how to get the ball point pen notes and highlighter marks off the screens.

just scan the textbooks

[Anonymous Coward]

what I did in college was: buy the textbook from the bookstore
scan it
return it in 7 days (or whatever the return deadline was)
then I looked for a free printer and here ya go :)
or gave the copy to someone, who would print me and him a copy

the bookstores loved me

Re:just scan the textbooks

[chifut]

yup, that's the way to go at my school, the first year we had free printing.. wohoo.. then I just found a school job in an office in the school that I could get free printing.. the publishers realized something, so they started selling shrink-wrapped books or books with passwords in them.. bastards.. shrinkwrap, stinkshmap.. just got my books from friends and still broke the law. muahaha!

Re:just scan the textbooks

[loraksus]

Or from the library... Got a couple math textbooks that way...

That's not the only things they do.

[Pollux]

you're likely to hear similar complaints about the cost of the textbooks, the rip-off buyout prices at local college bookstores and insidious publishers who keep changing editions every few years just to change the page numbers and kill off the used books market.

I'm a high school teacher who just had a marvelous time over the summer trying to order our next set of pre-calc books for our district. I needed to phone the company to find out the price of the textbooks in order to draft a price quote for the district before they would approve the order. I was trying to find out from the salesperson what the price of the pre-calc books were, using the ISBN from the sample book they had sent us. The problem I was having was that the ISBN of the sample book I had was different from the ISBN of the book that they were selling on the website, and both were different from the ISBN of the textbook that the salesman gave me over the phone. It took another 30 minute call to find out why.

Apparently, the ISBN of the book on the website was the wrong website. The pre-calc book I was searching for was published by Pearson Education, which owns a whole slew of subsidiary publishers, including Prentice Hall, Scott Foresman, Addison Wesley... I found the book I was looking for on Addison Wesley's website, though the book I wanted was apparently on Prentice Hall's website. But here's the kicker...The salesperson from the original inquiry gave me the ISBN for the college bound edition, instead of the High School bound edition. When I asked what the difference was (they were priced the same), she explained that the high school binding is much stronger and is meant to last for a good seven-eight years of abuse, while the college binding is only designed to last for two years before it starts to fall apart. I was surprised, and I asked the salesperson why the college kids get the poorer binding. She explained that the college bookstores (though I'm sure the publishers love this as well) don't profit as well of used book sales, so they want books to have a short lifespan. It's easier when the book is falling apart for them to refuse buyback.

And it makes perfect sense. I remember a whole bunch of my textbooks that would really fall apart in a year's time back in college, and I always wondered why my high school books could take so much more abuse and still come out alright. My prob-stat book in particular was shedding pages faster than a balding man would shed hair. Just another way publishers are trying to screw students in the long run.

Re:That's not the only things they do.

[kurobejin]

'She explained that the college bookstores (though I'm sure the publishers love this as well) don't profit as well of used book sales, so they want books to have a short lifespan. It's easier when the book is falling apart for them to refuse buyback.'

College bookstores makes immense amounts of money from used books. Publishers, however, do not. As explained to me a by a colleague who used to work for Prentice Hall, the publishers only profit from the first sale - out of that first sale, they need to pay the author, and cover the costs of the printing.

Publishers recieve no royalites or income from the sale of a used book - the bookstore keeps all that money. Thus, the price of new books keeps going up, driving flosks to used books, thus drivnig th sale of used books - a downward spiral.

The profits are immense - barnes & Nobles college division pays for the superstores, for example. Bookstores don't make that much money from the sale of a new book, but used book sales are all profit.

Re:That's not the only things they do.

[bcrowell]

She explained that the college bookstores (though I'm sure the publishers love this as well) don't profit as well of used book sales, so they want books to have a short lifespan. It's easier when the book is falling apart for them to refuse buyback.
Heeeee hee hee -- I love it, what a self-serving, ridiculous argument. OK, most college bookstores are nonprofit. The standard markup nationwide is about 36%. That may sound high to someone who's never run a business, but it has to cover rent, employees, and monthly bills. At that markup, these stores are doing exactly what they're supposed to do: not making a profit. What the college bookstore hates is for students to shop for classes, and return their book the second week when they decide they don't want the class. It costs the store a lot of time and money to process that return. But this has nothing to do with the book's durability over a period of many years.

Publishers these days kill off the used book market periodically by bringing out new editions. The typical time between one edition and the next is about 2-3 years. Their other scam is to sell the book shrinkwrapped with something useless, like a CD, or a card with a web site password on it; that way, the store won't allow the student to return it. If a student returns a book, and it doesn't end up getting sold, then the store ships it back to the publisher, who has to refund the store's money.

Re:That's not the only things they do.

[Trillian_1138]

I'd love to see where your 36% is coming from. I am a college student, but both my parents work in education so I have *some* knowledge of how things work outside my own school. In my experience, both from my school and everything I've heard about where my parents work as well as where my friends are going to school, college bookstores are violently for-profit. For example, my school's bookstore is no longer run by the school itself, but by Barnes and Nobel (someone else in this thread said B&N's college stores pay for their megastores - I don't know enough to comment and would like to see proof, but I could imagine that math working out...)

And I can speak directly both to meaningless changes in editions and to the shoddy quality of books. As mentioned elsewhere on this thread, I've had professors hand out sheets explaining how Version 6 of a textbook is different from Version 7 (the answer being that some essays were moved around but, other than that, no changes were made). Likewise, having been in high school far too recently, textbooks always had tougher binding, at the expense of not looking quite as pretty as the books we 'get' to buy in college.

In addition, your argument that the stores' main complaint is students returning books doesn't ring true to me. The store buys enough books for most of the class to buy them and, with used books, tries to have enough on hand to not run out. Having the extra stock at the end of the buying cycle (as you say, about two weeks into class) cannot possibly be that much less obnoxious than getting returns. Having worked at bookstores (admitedly, not a college store) returns are EASY and, even if I had to go through however many hundreds of returns the college stores undoubtedly get, that cannot possibly be a big dent in their profits.

I'm gonna echo a sentiment I've seen elsewhere on this page: textbooks and the texbook industry is, more often than not, a scam. Now, I have no direct evidence of this, but everything in my experience - the 'updates' which only move things around, the bullshit shrink-wraping to include unneeded things to returns are impossible, the return policies of the school stores themselves, the quality of the actual textbooks - leads me to that conclusion. In addition, everything I've read about textbooks furthers this conclusion.

I just reread your post. In all fairness, you never said that the textbook industry *isn't* a big moneymaking scam. But the tone of your post, specifically that college stores are non-profit (ha!) led to this post. Sorry if it was a bit rambling...
-Trillian
PS - Links:
Students Find $100 Texbooks Cost $50 Overseas (needs reg but bugmenot works) http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/21/education/21BOOK .html?ex=1156910400&en=9c634fe677e1fe19&ei=5070
Textbook Publisher Kickback Scam?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/26/eveningn ews/main585832.shtml
Just What The Professor Ordered (needs reg, talks about 5 publishers control 80% of the market)
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F3 0D15FB35550C758DDDA00894DD404482

Re:That's not the only things they do.

[kabocox]

When I asked what the difference was (they were priced the same), she explained that the high school binding is much stronger and is meant to last for a good seven-eight years of abuse, while the college binding is only designed to last for two years before it starts to fall apart. I was surprised, and I asked the salesperson why the college kids get the poorer binding. She explained that the college bookstores (though I'm sure the publishers love this as well) don't profit as well of used book sales, so they want books to have a short lifespan. It's easier when the book is falling apart for them to refuse buyback.

And it makes perfect sense. I remember a whole bunch of my textbooks that would really fall apart in a year's time back in college, and I always wondered why my high school books could take so much more abuse and still come out alright. My prob-stat book in particular was shedding pages faster than a balding man would shed hair. Just another way publishers are trying to screw students in the long run.

I still have all of my college text books in fairly good shape. I didn't buy all of them in good shape though so those don't still look like new. I was wondering if anyone knew the average expected lifespan of a $50-$100 book purchase. I know we consumers don't have much power in this, but it would be nice if some consumer rights group demanded that "expensive" books be designed to hold up over decades of use rather than 2-3 years of use. I'm sure part of it is how well the books are kept and if they are used on a daily basis. My college books haven't really been touched since college and they are still in the same shape. While in college, I usually opened/closed and paged through the books at least 3-5 times a week for a semester or two. Do we have any librarians here that know how long the usual library book usually lasts and what libraries demand the lifespan of the books be. I'd think libraries would be the only institution looking for long lifed books. Book Publishers could care less how long their product actually lasts.

E-Ink is ideal for degree level study

[Anonymous Coward]

"I have PDF and print versions of many technically references. The PDFs get opened first at which point the paper is usually only for browsing."

You can read them using this device.

BTW ST:NG solved the OP's problem by making the readers common enough that one could have several.

free as in beer and free of ads

[gsn]

These e-textbooks are not books in the customary sense. Sandi Kirshner, chief marketing officer for Pearson's higher-education group, says the e-textbook is offered only on a "subscription basis," which means that a student buys access for a defined period, like a semester, and cannot resell access to the book to others.

This itself kills the value of these things - I've kept most of my textbooks and all my physics textbooks and frequently refer to them later. I'm going to trust anything that is advertising supported less because I'm going to wonder if its unbiased.

This is going to be useless for mathematics too because there are so many
free math textbooks out there. Physics is going this way and you can find lecture notes on some advanced topics on arxiv. Sean Carroll's lecture notes for GR are still online and form the basis of his textbook. Gould and Tobochnik have stat thermo notes online. I've used both in classes. Google lecture notes physics for a sample of whats out there. These guys cannot compete with this.

And even if I could have online lecture notes I use the free printing (2up and duplex so give me a break) because they are more readable and I need to be able to right notes on them. And still buy the textbooks because I don't mind having the references. I don't whine about the price of *most* of the textbooks I need because they are valuable references. These guys are probably going to be yet another failed web 2.0 phenomenon.

Malreported..

[not-admin]

What do you mean by 'adjust' and 'new'?
It's always been that way!

Revisionist

[koan]

Great and when the government in power disagrees with the text books content they can be easily adjusted to say exactly what needs to be said, evolution? What's that?
How many fingers am I holding up? Double plus good brother...

Anyone ever try to read a microbio text book in PDF format? Paper is still better.

Distraction

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of us (including me) are easily distracted when studying. Having ads in my textbook definitely will not help.

"Let's see, the super sonic air flow formula of this nozzle is...Ooooh! A Best Buy ad!"

textbooks are a ripoff

[Mike_ya]

I paid $65 for a 100 level Western Civ class textbook. The book was used and looking at the stickers on the back of it I was at least the third student to buy it and it still cost me 65 bucks. What a joke. Bookstore isn't buying it back so I guess I'll try to get $15 for it on Amazon.

Ad-supported textbooks are nothing more than another revenue stream for the publishers. If people were serious about making textbooks cheaper for students most textbooks wouldn't changed as often as they do.

PDF's are like getting a gift that is if the gift is a 20 year old fruitcake.

Not supported by the university

[Z1NG]

An economics professor at the university I attend, tries to combat high price texts by releasing her own each semester at a local printing studio, for the price of printing and binding (about $20). She said that at one point she wanted to include ads for local businesses, so that the text would be free - but the university would not allow it.

I'm allergic to books

[Migraineman]

Honestly. I have allergies to Spruce/Pine/Fir (SPF) and most softwoods that end up as the pulp feedstock for paper. I'm also allergic to my current residence, which is constructed mostly of SPF. I actively purge dead-tree materials in favor of electronic equivalents. The "textbook" and "newspaper" smells that some people praise are anathema to me. However, putting adverts in reference material is just as bad.

That said, the college textbook requirements have always been a scam perpetrated by the university(ies) in collusion with the publishers. The university environment is one that isn't subject to free-market forces, and will abuse the students to their tolerance limit. The university can dictate terms. It's in the publisher's best interest to play along. Consider it the price of admission.

Problem is the publisher

[jilles]

Selling books in the education market is highly profitable business. Let me rephrase that: publisher profits in the education market are financed through government sponsorships (e.g. research grants); money intended for education (e.g. scholarships or parent contributions) and money earned by students in various jobs when they should be studying. If that's not good enough: students are more or less required to buy the books (provided you get teachers to endorse them). Vast amounts of money intended for education flow more or less directly to the publishers. Under many governments, that includes substantial portions of the tax money you pay.

Essentially the problem is the same as in the scientific article publishing business: authors see little or none of this revenue. Essentially, all the profit is for the publisher. If your name is Andrew Tanenbaum, well maybe you do get a nice salary from the hundreds of thousands of people buying your books. But otherwise, the fees do not come close to paying for the time invested in the books. These books tend to be printed in small editions of a few tens of thousands copies at best (production cost a few dollars each). The point is, authors mostly are not doing this for the money but for the honor (including having their book printed by a well known publisher).

The printing business made a lot of sense when distributing dead trees was the only means of distributing information, other than by re-enacting it in front of an audience (quite normal until the invention of book printing). Nowadays, books are all about convenience and having glossy covers on your shelf. The convenience consists mostly of having better contrast and the ability to 'scribble' in them. The shelf factor of many books is arguably more important than the actual content. Many books are never even read cover to cover!

The solution is simple: get the publishers out of the loop and distribute the books electronically under for example the creative commons license. For the price of a normal book you can easily finance printing the entire book on glossy paper with a really expensive inkjet printer in full color, should you wish to do so. Of course putting a bunch of laser print copies through a high volume copy machine is much faster and cheaper. And for some, reading stuff from a screen works just fine (you don't print slashdot 20 times per day, do you?).

There would of course need to be some infrastructure for editing, reviewing and ranking books (e.g. by references to it or endorsements by people/universities/schools). That should be a relatively simple problem to solve and I don't see the need for involvement of for profit publisher businesses in this. Additional value could be provided in the form of reader forums/blogs, regular updates to the content, reader provided exercises, references, etc.

ads don't work on poor students

[noneme]

Let me get this business model strait:

• College students don't have much money.
  
• College students are sick of expensive text books.
  
• For these reasons, college students will readily want free e-text books.
  
• The e-text books will stay free via advertisements.
  
• The advertisers will profit from product sales to the college students who don't have money for textbooks in the first place.

At least with the publishers it was more like price gouging. Ad-based e-text books seems more like exploitation of that price gouging.

My first stop when learning a new subject

[Darthmalt]

wikipedia.org Yes yes I know it has it's problems but if you have no idea what something is like say Ruby On Rails it's a great starting place and usually has references to other articles where you can find more information. Plus if it is about some non controversial subject say what is IPv6 it's probably going to be the easiest up to date and most accurate place to find out the information.

where's my nice e-paper reader?

[chocolatetrumpet]

I'm waiting for a fantastic e-paper reader, personally.

free textbooks

[bcrowell]

Here is a recent USA Today article that talks about something similar to what you're referring to. Free textbooks aren't hypothetical, they already exist. A sugar-daddy philanthropist isn't required; professors are already doing it for the same reason they've always written textbooks. (Hint: they've never expected to make any significant amount of money on the typical textbook.) Some good starting points:

• theassayer.org
• textbookrevolution.org

I'm currently working on a CD that's meant to convince professors to think about using free books. The idea is sort of like TheOpenCD: all those apps are freely available on the internet, but many people don't know about them, or don't know how to find good ones without searching through a million web sites.

Re:lazy professors - bad books

[saskboy]

This will lead down the road to textbooks becoming women's magazines like O, where there is no real table of contents. They'll just have subjects on the cover like:
Evolution - Fact or Fiction?
Genes - RNA vs. DNA Where do they fit in?
Cloning - Is it right for you?

And then you have to flip through the book seeing ads as you go because there is no page number associated with the sensational headline.

Much Ado About Nothing

[sweetnjguy29]

An average student takes 5 classes each semester. Usually 2 to 5 books are required per class. One of these books is expensive, between $70 to $100 and the other 4 are between $10 to $25. It usually averages out about $125 per class, setting the student back about $625...although in my experience, it usually works out to around $500 for the semester.

At a public university, such as Rutgers, tuition and fees comes to $9,958 (about $10,000). So, you have to spend a 10% premium to get your books. Shitty, but not so unreasonable. Considering that at a good private school, such as Washington University in St. Louis, tuition and fees comes to $34,294 (about $35,000), thats only about a 3% premium.

If you can't afford the books, you can share a copy with a fellow student, or use the library copy, if there is one. Or buy an older used copy and cope with not knowing which assignment to do. Used copies often go for $5 on Amazon, depending on the title.

Of course, some of my best professors in undergrad and grad school did not use textbooks at all. Most, but not all textbooks are crutches for both the student and the professor. If the professor is willing to do a little bit of legwork to assemble and procure permissions to use copy righted material, he can assemble a very nice looseleaf binder with appropriate journal articles and related reading materials. These little gems usually only cost about $30 to $40 a pop and contain the greatest and latest research. And it is customized. In an electronic format, they are probably cheaper.

College Professors need to get out of the stone age. Most good material is available free online to a university. 'Nuff said.

Consider it an investment

[coyotecult]

So you don't think advertisers won't want to try to instill brand recognition in college students with better than average earning potential once they get out of college? Heck, even in college they have credit cards they don't seem to know how to manage.

A poor college student will not always be a poor college student. Worming into their brain at this stage is an investment.

Of course, once the market will bear ad-based e-text books, they'll probably start charging for them AND putting the ads in, kind of like cable television.

The books I learned the most out of...

[sauge]

Those cheap paper back books from Dover Publications.

Add to that, the graph book I spent 14 bucks on enabled me to turned out manufacturing software worth $100,000 directly into my pocket over the years.

Best investment I ever made.

Eduwikation

[Jambon]

Ok, since Wikipedia has for many become the first thing they turn to for information, why not have a government sponsored and reviewed (or at least school sponsored) education wiki? It would probably take a few years to build up to the point where it could be a subsitute for a textbook, but if it was reviewed by either the teacher or the state, depending on minimum requirements of the institution, I could see a wiki as a far better alternative to textbooks. Not only would it give the teacher the flexibility to pick and choose from a huge list of available subject matter, it would also help the student, as they would not be stuck with only a single explanation for their subject matter. This is, at least to my understanding, different from wikibooks because it would offer several different explanations for any given subject rather than being a e-textbook.

An example: Take a first year calculus class. Students would sign on to their account on the wiki, where they would be presented with all the information for the course, as selected by the professor. While site would divided into chapters, also arranged by the prof, each chapter would include multiple approaches to the topic, which could be rated by the students. So, for example, there could a flash animation explaning limits and a more formal picture and text version. Students could also access other presentations not approved by the professor if they wanted to. There would also be the option of making a textbook out of a wiki for those who did not wish to access everything from their computer.

Now the wiki would not be as open as wikipedia. Not by a longshot. There would be an approved section of materials, and a "beta" section, where people could suggest changes or entirely new presentations. Editing the main articles would only be open to a select group of people. A prof could edit an article, but doing so would move the edited version to the "beta" section.

Now while this whole system could be open, it could be tax funded depending on whether or not it was government sponsored. Maybe if schools charged $1 per student per class for a class account. I don't know. It's an idealistic dream which will in all likelyhood never happen due to the incumbency of textbooks, or maybe it's already happening to a small extend and I don't know about it. Either way, I can dream can't I?

Publishers already rich enough

[persuasion]

Most people don't know it, but these big publishers are so in bed with one another, buying from them is like buying from OPEC. They've linked up and formed an informal cartel.

Here's how they do it: http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/interlocking.htm l

Students: Tell your professors to use your favorite Wikibook!

Screw This

[Master of Transhuman]

Just find a site with a ton of cracked ebooks and download the suckers.

When I was in college back in the Seventies, I asked a friend who had one of those big grey Kodak microfilm cameras like they had in libraries to microfilm all my textbooks. Sold them back to the bookstore, bought a handheld microfiche reader and used that. Teacher gave me funny looks when he told the class to open their books to page so-and-so and I whip out a little plastic gadget and some plastic sheets and start peering through a lens at them.

Today it's easier.

And always ask the teacher if he's going to assign homework from the book. If not, just get an equivalent ebook that covers the same material. If he is, buy the book, copy the homework pages, then sell the book back.

Re:CHM versus PDF no comparison - I have thousands

[loraksus]

Well, to be fair, a lot of the pdfs on alt.binaries.ebook.technical are made from a bunch of images that are put in order and "printed" to a pdf file, regardless of the orientation / paper size of the source. In that regards, yeah, it sucks. But that's not the proper way to do it ;)
Properly made PDFs are quite good - but it actually takes a fair bit of effort to make a bad chm.

Most of the stuff in that group is PDF, btw. Which I suppose is the "democratic" way of looking at it.

Reflow never worked worth a damn on my pocketpc - although I haven't used it for about 2 years now - there may be advances.

Ob. SimpRef

[RyuSoma]

'If you have three Pepsis and drink one, how much more refreshed are you?' 'Pepsi?' 'Partial Credit!'

Why is a Calc book $100?

[cjsm]

I was shocked when my nephew was taking calculus a couple of years ago and he had to pay over $100 for a book. When I went to college in the early 70s it was around $25, if I remember correctly. What is the excuse for this price? There is no new information in them. Its not like a medical or computer science book where there is new data coming out every year which must be incorporated into the text. There is no reason to rewrite them every year. There is no need for new editions. There are already 1000s of editions available. They could just select the best written, clearest classic texts from 1910-1990 and republish them, and it would probably be a superior text then the run of the mill average text nowadays.

The truth is, the writers just copy from older texts and rephrase them. A Calculus book shouldn't be priced at any more then $30, since it should be priced like a commodity product, which is what it is. Charging a $100 a pop proves it is a crooked scam between book publishers and universities.

Re:Why is a Calc book $100?

[Rix]

How much did a loaf of bread cost in the 70's?

Re:Why is a Calc book $100?

[Vegeta99]

"The Inflation Calculator":

What cost $25.00 in 1973 would cost $103.41 in 2002.

But I still feel you. I'm a college student.

Re:Why is a Calc book $100?

[cjsm]

Yea, but you can still find hardback books for $25-$35 nowadays. Why should a calc book cost more than that? Its a commodity item, and should be priced as such. A hardback novel involves more real work then recycling a calc textbook.

ebooks have their place

[Rix]

I like having pdf versions of my textbooks, regardless of whether I buy the dead tree version or not. Physical books are much better for reading large sections of, especially the first time through, but ebooks are much better for reference. There's no search function in cellulose ;).

Before you read about George Washington...

[pegwole]

...Sock the monkey and get 25 banana bucks! ...Click here for your free iPod! ...Ads by Gooooooooooogle

Re:CHM versus PDF no comparison - I have thousands

[tomstdenis]

Well I bet you I could misuse CHM too. Big deal. If you use the tools properly PDF is a very useful format. My math text is ~300 pages and is only 1.4MB as a PDF. That includes all the fonts, layout and text itself. It renders the same on my Linux boxes as it does on my PocketPC, Win32 and other boxes... No worrying if I have the "right" version of Sans Serif handy.

Most ebooks are images because yeah they print driver them or they're done that way on purpose to avoid piracy [e.g. copy/pasting].

Reflow only works on text. Which is why it probably didn't work for you.

Tom

Introduction to [sponsors] sponsored Relativity

[syousef]

Today we will go through the [sponsor's product] sponsored explanation of Special Relativity, proudly brought to you by [sponsor's name]. We will learn the derviation of the famous equation E = [sponsor's product] MC^2. But first a word from our sponsor [sponsor]. But first let's take a moment to learn about new refreshing [sponsor's product].

What a FUCKING AWFUL idea. Oh no this won't be abused at all. When you read a damned textbook you need to focus on what you're learning not a bunch of ads. This move is greedy, exploitative and socially destructive. It should be banned by legislation world wide.

International Editions

[jeikabu]

When I was in school I was suprised to learn about "international editions". All the Indian guys that were in my research lab had the same books, but theirs had a black and white soft-cover and slightly worse print. Now that I'm overseas I find these all the time at a fraction of what I remember paying for textbooks. Who cares if they don't have a color hard-cover, the content that you're buying them for is the same. The amusing thing is that they often have some text on them: "Nor for sale outside ". I've always wondered whether that's actually enforceable. I will say that the *one* bad thing about them is their lack of durability. Keeping one on a book shelf in your lab or room is fine, but I'm not totally sure they'd get through an entire semester of being carted around in a backpack. The comment above about the Chinese texts being broken into parts is also nice in this regard as they're lighter to carry around *and* wear and tear is spread out across several different books. If only I could find book covers of some sort... Besides, any half-decent student waited a week or so to see what a class was like. If the professor didn't really use the book and relied more on his own notes, etc. or if the book just plain sucked, well... then it's a purchasing decision. Or drop the class if it's that bad...

Re:International Editions

[yotam]

See Eswar books.

BAD MOVE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Next comes. . .

"Fred's Fish Fries will not advertise in this book because this text decries fishing around the turn of the century as irresponsible and as the cause of depleted populations of native fish in reivers, lakes and the ocean."

"But that is what has been recorded by historians and experts as true. We are not saying you are doing that now. It is simply history."

"Pull the section or we pull the add."

"But we can't produce the book at a competative price without the advertising."

"Then you should seriously consider our offer."

The text gets pulled and history is re-written. . . Ridiculous example but you get the point.

warez textbooks

[peter303]

Some years ago I read about websites of scanned in textbooks. Some guys in Asia hire cheap labor to scan entire textbook, then charge modest fee for download. Can be profitable in as little as one hundred downloads.
Has anyone else heard of this?

This will cost more, not less

[RhettLivingston]

The only reason advertisers would pay for this is if they are getting more business in return than the cost of the textbooks. Therefore, on average, the students will be paying more for their textbooks, not less. Schools that are allowing this are simply helping advertisers to take more money from this relatively naive and vulnerable population segment. They are doing no favors.

Obligatory Simpsons

[lbmouse]

According to Oscar Mayer periodic table of elements, the atomic weight of bolonium is "delicious" or "snacktacular".

Freeload Press addresses your concerns

[jturgeon]

Hi-

I'm Jason Turgeon, publisher of http://www.textbookrevolution.org/. I'm replying on this thread on behalf of the Freeload Press management team. Freeload is in the process of acquiring textbookrevolution. We'd briefly like to address the concerns of the Slashdot community.

Many commenters are concerned about the possibility that ads could influence the content of the textbooks. These are legitimate concerns common to all publishers. We simply will not accept any interference with the integrity of the content. Any publisher's path to success starts with the quality of the content. In this regard, we will be similar to newspapers and magazines, with a firewall built between editorial and the advertising operations. This is the same process used by other ad-supported media, including the New York Times and Slashdot.

Other commenters expressed concerns that PDF files are difficult to read, and that the flow of the text will be interrupted by ads. Freeload is placing ads only at natural breaks in the text, such as before and after chapter headings. Freeload acknowledges that PDF is not always easy to read on screen, but many students seem happy to make this tradeoff given the considerable savings. Unlike the heavily DRM'd ebook offerings from traditional publishers, students are free to print as much or as often as they would like. Low-cost, ad-free paperbound versions of the books are available for students who prefer not to read on screen. These paperbound versions are significantly less expensive than comparable offerings from traditional publishers. Freeload Press will soon adopt a version of the open source dotReader program (http://www.dotreader.com/site/) as an alternative to PDF (users will still be able to choose PDF versions if they don't want to install new software). DotReader has several advantages over PDF that will make it more valuable to students than either PDF or print books. Finally, I am personally taking charge of the initiative to make Freeload's PDF's available in two versions, optimized for either printing or on-screen viewing. This should make it easier for students who want to read books on screen to do so with a minimum of scrolling and eyestrain. These changes will take some time, but we hope to have them ready for the next academic year.

Several people noted that one reason traditional textbooks are so expensive is the frequent update cycle designed to kill the used book market. Since Freeload's product does not have to worry about the used book market, there will be fewer new editions. Updates will be integrated into current editions as they are needed to keep the books current, with version tracking just like software. Professors will be free to assign whichever version they want. Completely new editions will not be necessary every 2-3 years in most subjects, making it easier for professors to stick with a book they are comfortable with and reducing confusion for students. Of course, in fast-changing subjects, we will issue new editions as often as they are necessary.

If you have a specific concern or comment about the books, ads, or software platform, please get in touch with me: jason AT textbookrevolution DOT org. Also, please note that we know both websites need an upgrade. We're working on it, and we think the new versions will make even the most tech-obsessed user happy.

I couldn't agree more

[rodoke3]

I always found concerns about that to be overblown. In my program, I've found that:

1. 90% of the people who buy such "advanced" calculators never use as more than a very expensive, bulky scientific calculator, mostly because they never take the time to learn to do anything that made buying it worthwhile.
2. The 5% who have the initiative to learn to use their calculator's functions tend to be smart enough to know to not rely on them.
3. The last 5% spend hours before test day typing up cheat sheets through the keypad.

In other words, it's annoying as hell when you're solving a problem on someone's TI-83 Plus that they've owned for four years, only to have them interrupt you with "zOMG HOW DID YOU DO THAT!!!!!111.6" when you store a variable!

Instructors and Open Books

[Enkerli]

My 0.02$ as an instructor (cultural anthropology, African studies, linguistic anthropology, ethnomusicology).

Contrary to what some people seem to think, some of us instructors do care about the price of textbooks. Many of us see textbooks as a necessary evil and some of us get almost allergic reactions when sales representatives from publishing houses come to our offices. (Got several visits and calls myself, even as a visiting lecturer.) For those of us who care about reasonably-priced textbooks, some publishing houses' practises are anti-competitive and unfair.
Case in point. Decide to use a short, inexpensive textbook for one of my introductory-level classes, two semesters in a row. Price and length did have an impact on my decision (the textbook was itself better than more expensive ones). at tIt was published just in time for the first of those semesters and cost about 40$ at that point. The second semester, without notifying me, the publisher had bundled that textbook with another book. The bundle was 60$. Not that expensive. But my students still had to buy something that we never used.
One problem for an instructor, when the textbook is cost-prohibitive, is that students are more likely to complain if the course doesn't follow the textbook very closely. Secondly, different editions are often confusing for students and it's difficult for an instructor to keep track of all of those discrepancies. Not to mention that an expensive textbook may discourage students from buying other material for that subject.
According to someone close to me who used to work at a publishing house, textbooks are the main source of income for several publishers. A bit like "hits" for record labels, but students aren't free to choose textbooks as they please.
Obviously, the financial model is skewed.

Those issues should be enough to encourage everyone to adopt a new model. But there's even more.
Textbooks are typically written by a handful of authors who may be well qualified for explaining several of the issues included in those textbooks but who still have areas of limited expertise. The result in cultural anthropology, for instance, is that textbook chapters on language are usually full of inaccuracies while chapters on the authors' areas of expertise appear quite decent. In some cases, an instructor might even end up having to "fight the textbook" instead of using it as a reference.
Online material accompanying textbooks in some disciplines generally seem like an afterthought instead of representing a central part of the approach. The ultimate effect is that students get disinterested in that material and will come to rely on other (and often unreliable) sources.
While some publishers offer instructors the possibility to use material from different books, these sources should all be from the same publisher. So an instructor can't use Chapter 3 from Jane Smith's textbook published by one of Thomson's many subsidiaries and Chapter 4 from Amy Johnson's textbook published by Oxford University Press. How can we get a diversity of viewpoints, in such a situation?

The solution, IMVHO? Open textbooks. Teaching material based on an open content model. Supported by instructors and their institutions. With a flexible, modular design.
Yes, Wikibooks may be part of that solution. But there are other issues to think about. How do we motivate instructors to contribute content to such a project? Does it count for tenure? Who will lead the effort to complete such a textbook? How can we integrate those books in our teaching? Will students use those textbooks the way they were intended or discount them based on perceived quality? Are students without Internet access out of luck? Who will provide "technical" support to students and instructors? How can we produce affordable dead-tree copies for those who need them? How can we make deals with publishers to integrate excerpts from primary texts? How can we share material to instructors without giving too much away to students? How can we integrate this material

E-book suppliment a reality

[SonicSpike]

I had a "services marketing" course in which each book came with a separate and individual "web key code" which allowed access to their website.

Well, the publisher (Atomic Dog), has supplemental material on their website, but they also have quizzes and tests online too. The prof decided that we were going to have weekly quizzes on the subject as part of our grade and we would take them online at the publisher's website. She would get the report e-mailed to her after everyone finished their quiz.

Essentially, this NULLIFIED the resale market, AND FORCED THE PURCHASE OF THE BOOK BY EVERY STUDENT! The online quizzes were required, and the only way to get online was to buy the book and get yourself an individual access code.

Good marketing, but it definitely pissed me off!