Small Missouri College goes book-free

[Bikewer]

NPR reports this morning that a small university in Southern Missouri has decided to go textbook-free. All students are issued a laptop on admittance, and textbooks are downloaded in e-book form.
Students are free to cut & paste, share notes, network, etc.

The e-books cost about half as much as the hard-copy textbooks.

(I wonder what they'll do about file-sharing.

Supposedly, at the faculty announcement, a philosophy professor had tears in his eyes....

[Rasmus]

NPR reports this morning that a small university in Southern Missouri has decided to go textbook-free. All students are issued a laptop on admittance, and textbooks are downloaded in e-book form.
Students are free to cut & paste, share notes, network, etc.

The e-books cost about half as much as the hard-copy textbooks.

(I wonder what they'll do about file-sharing.

Supposedly, at the faculty announcement, a philosophy professor had tears in his eyes....

Tears of joy, no doubt.

[quixotecoyote]

Is the laptop a loan like high school textbooks or do they buy it? It still might be cheaper. An older laptop only costs about 2 textbooks worth.

[TX50]

Do students have to buy their own textbooks in America? Are these e-books
downloaded free of charge? I remember struggling to raise cash to buy books
when I was trying to study (in the UK).

[Math Maniac]

Do students have to buy their own textbooks in America? Are these e-books
downloaded free of charge? I remember struggling to raise cash to buy books
when I was trying to study (in the UK).

It's not the purchasing of textbooks that I minded (was student in the US) so much, it was that a quick google search revealed non-hardback versions of the same new editions in other countries that were going for half or less than half of what I was expected to pay (subsidized?). I would have rather had a non-hardback book for most of them, but didn't want to wait and deal with any possible hassle brought on by purchasing the non-US versions.

As for the OP, for most books, I prefer actual physical media when reading. The option for books or ebooks or both would've been nice, though.

[Skeptic Guy]

More than likely the students are going to buy laptops anyway, so its already a sunken cost. Otherwise, I wonder when the break even point would be?

Alternatively, they could purchase Kindles at a cheaper cost (not that much cheaper though).

[ZirconBlue]

But, at the end of the semester, will they be able to sell the ebooks back for 1/10th the price? ;)

[drkitten]

Do students have to buy their own textbooks in America? Are these e-books
downloaded free of charge? I remember struggling to raise cash to buy books
when I was trying to study (in the UK).

Typically, students in the US are required to pay for their own books, and they're quite expensive; a typical [new] calculus textbook can run up to $200.

More worrisome from the publishers' point of view is the existence of the used textbook market, where one can buy a previous year's copy at a substantial discount, anywhere from $50-$150 for that same book. But none of that money goes to the publisher (or the author, dammit), and so it's a total loss.

The idea behind e-books (as I've seen it) is that the students can essentially "rent" access to a book for a semester, at the end of which time they no longer have access, and therefore can't re-sell. A typical e-book will cost 30-50% of the price of the physical textbook, and "normally" the student would need to pay that as well.

[Skeptic Guy]

But, at the end of the semester, will they be able to sell the ebooks back for 1/10th the price? ;)

They'll just email them to a freshman and charge them 50%!

[drkitten]

They'll just email them to a freshman and charge them 50%!

Depends on what type of DRM the books have. I think my publisher (well, one of them) does not provide PDFs, for example; everything is available page by page through a web portal. I suppose you COULD go page-by-page through and take 400+ screen images, but that sounds like a hell of a lot of work.

More likely, someone will do that once and put it up at the same BitTorrent site that the RIAA is suing this week.

[quixotecoyote]

Typically, students in the US are required to pay for their own books, and they're quite expensive; a typical [new] calculus textbook can run up to $200.

More worrisome from the publishers' point of view is the existence of the used textbook market, where one can buy a previous year's copy at a substantial discount, anywhere from $50-$150 for that same book. But none of that money goes to the publisher (or the author, dammit), and so it's a total loss.

The idea behind e-books (as I've seen it) is that the students can essentially "rent" access to a book for a semester, at the end of which time they no longer have access, and therefore can't re-sell. A typical e-book will cost 30-50% of the price of the physical textbook, and "normally" the student would need to pay that as well.

I'm not sure I but that the e-books thing has any relation to book publishers, for one reason: editions.

Every two or three years the publishers release a new edition of a book, maybe with a handful of new paragraphs, the chapters relabeled, and a new foreword. Then the universities adopt the new edition and the used market for the old books (usually) becomes irrelevant that year.

Since this happens every couple years and the e-books cost half to a third as much, it seems like it would come out as a wash.

[drkitten]

Every two or three years the publishers release a new edition of a book, maybe with a handful of new paragraphs, the chapters relabeled, and a new foreword. Then the universities adopt the new edition and the used market for the old books (usually) becomes irrelevant that year.

You've never seen students carrying around older editions of books?

[Mitchell314]

Our high school is trying the same thing, although there still are textbooks being used. The laptops were paid by grant. From my few observations, there is the potential for being useful, but the technology must be applied correctly.

[tyr_13]

I get some of my best reading done on the pot though, so laptops aren't the best for that!

I didn't sell back any of my textbooks through almost six years of college. It felt insulting to get paid $20 for a book I paid $250 for, let alone the dozens of novels I paid $5 for that they would literally give me fifty cents for. Besides, I write in most of my books (my The Universe in a Nutshell book has crap on every page).

So I have a little library going on that I really don't have the room for. Still, useful for referencing.

[Delvo]

This would keep me out of that college. Books just have some convenience factors that a computer doesn't, paper is easier on the eyes than a computer screen, and if you can only access it for the semester you can't keep it for later years.

Typically, students in the US are required to pay for their own books, and they're quite expensive; a typical [new] calculus textbook can run up to $200.Mine for this semester: 10 books for 5 classes, 36 pounds, 5365 pages, $824.50

(It's not as bad as that makes it sound. They will be reused in the next four semesters and there are only a few books left to get for those semesters that we didn't already get.)

[quixotecoyote]

You've never seen students carrying around older editions of books?

Very seldom. The campus bookstore doesn't carry them, neither do any off-campus ones I've seen. The only times you see them with old editions are when they order offline or get them from a friend. Maybe 1-3 per class max.

[NewtonTrino]

Personally I think this is a decent idea but I still like to have actual books in front of me on occasion. It would be best to have both actually. Nothing really stops them from buying the book or printing it out I guess.

[Jeff Corey]

You've never seen students carrying around older editions of books?
Well, as Quixotecoyote said, the new editions consist of minor changes designed to torpedo the used book market. The problem is that the faculty goes along with it and assigns the new book. Last semester, I tried to assign a previous edition of a text because the new one was a combined text/workbook for $132.50 for a frackin' paperback! The publisher figured to eliminate the used book market by selling a book that would self-destruct.
The bookstore ordered the useless new book anyway.
So next semester, I won't order the books from the bookstore unless they'll get the used ones and recommend that the students purchase from Amazon or previous students..

[ZirconBlue]

I get some of my best reading done on the pot though, so laptops aren't the best for that!

I didn't sell back any of my textbooks through almost six years of college. It felt insulting to get paid $20 for a book I paid $250 for, let alone the dozens of novels I paid $5 for that they would literally give me fifty cents for. Besides, I write in most of my books (my The Universe in a Nutshell book has crap on every page).

So I have a little library going on that I really don't have the room for. Still, useful for referencing.

Ew.

[drkitten]

Very seldom. The campus bookstore doesn't carry them, neither do any off-campus ones I've seen. The only times you see them with old editions are when they order offline or get them from a friend. Maybe 1-3 per class max.

Goodness. Your students still get their books from the campus bookstore?

I routinely see 70%+ of my students ordering their books from eBay and ending up with the 2002 edition published in Bangladesh. For $3, which is probably enough to feed a Bangladeshi family of 5 forever.

[Skeptic Guy]

Depends on what type of DRM the books have. I think my publisher (well, one of them) does not provide PDFs, for example; everything is available page by page through a web portal. I suppose you COULD go page-by-page through and take 400+ screen images, but that sounds like a hell of a lot of work.

More likely, someone will do that once and put it up at the same BitTorrent site that the RIAA is suing this week.

This is very true, DRM would be required. I could see them offering access to the material via a webportal requiring access via login. The benefit is that the publisher can more easily update the content on a regular basis.

[quixotecoyote]

Goodness. Your students still get their books from the campus bookstore?


Yep. Not only that, but I'm in the minority of teachers (I believe, not having surveyed) who do not require new book purchases to get the supplemental packages.

Sometimes I wonder if there's a kickback scheme I haven't been invited to get in on.

[tyr_13]

Ew.

Very nice. My choice of words was...poor. Or ******.

[I Ratant]

You've never seen students carrying around older editions of books?
.
One of the short-sighted perks of studenthood was selling last year's text books.
I wish I'd kept all of mine, but the short-term cash-in-pocket for a starving student ruled.

[Aitch]

Back in the day, all them years ago, when I started my Business Studies HND, I remember getting home with a big pile of glossy paperback text books. After a quick leaf through them (my life! the accountancy text was dull!:covereyes), one of the first things I did was use Lipsey's Positive Economics to swat a bluebottle that was annoying me - the remains (of the bluebottle) covered about a square yard. :eek:

Can't do that with a laptop. Not and still have a working laptop, that is. ;)

[Rasmus]

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/kindle.png

http://xkcd.com/548/

Not only is there an xkcd comic for everything, sometimes it feels as if the guy is following me around over the internet...

[Mitchell314]

Not only is there an xkcd comic for everything, sometimes it feels as if the guy is following me around over the internet...

I'm not alone!

[ZirconBlue]

I'm not alone!

That's not what xkcd says.