The End of College Bookstores?
Are we finally coming to that oft predicted outcome of the digital age? That physical books will be no more?
I think so.
My school recently launched a program that will move course materials for specific classes online to be made readable in eText format.
But this is nothing new, schools and publishers have been putting textbooks online for years now. What is new and revolutionary is that the school has negotiated a deal with a number of eText publishers that will reduce the cost of the different texts by 60 to 70 percent.
With the cost of textbooks being as high as they are these days, this might finally be the spark the eText industry has been looking for to get people away from their hard-copy books.
The cost for these eTexts will be levied within the tuition bill, and the texts automatically uploaded to my school's online course management system, Oncourse.
My school has also partnered with a company that has built a software program that will be used to read and engage the texts. According to CampusTechnology.com, the software will:
... allow students to tag the digital content, perform searches, collaborate as a study group, and view multimedia on any computer or mobile device. Additionally, faculty who opt to use the software will have the ability to integrate notes, links, and annotations on students' e-texts.
Here are my thoughts about the new program:
I believe programs such as these are the wave of the future. Including electronic texts within the cost of tuition seems like a move more universities are going to make for both financial and academic reasons.
Plus, these relationships are mutually beneficial because universities will be able to ensure that their students have the texts on the first day of class and receive them for a great price, and publishers will generate more sales through the resulting decline in demand for used books. Perhaps this will even mean less "new editions."
My only gripe with the program is that the eTexts cannot be read on readers such as the Kindle and Nook, which are more convenient to use than computers and iPads. But the reason why is obvious: the software program, Courseload, and its features are not compatible with such products.
What do you guys think? Do you think this type of model is the way of the future for colleges and universities? Colleges and universities have developed similar models with companies like Adobe and Microsoft and have found great success. Why not with book publishers as well?
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Re: The End of College Bookstores?
I actually work at my university's bookstore and am chummy with most of the management, so I've listened in to their discussions about the way the "traditional book" (which is a weird term) is going.
Part of the reason books are still doing well is because they're just easier to use. More often than not, students in class while either be confused about how to access an online component of the course or claim that program won't upload properly onto their laptop or tablet. With a book, you either have it or you don't; it's that simple. Apparently students are just deciding its not worth the hassle to work out the kinks.
If cost is the concern, and you stated that the deal would cut prices dramatically, my bookstore now offers the option to rent your textbooks for nearly half the price. If you're old-fashioned and want a physical book while saving some money, that's your best option. There are limits to what you can do to them, but it's reasonable.
Just for kicks, here's a link to a report a local news station did about textbooks, featuring me.
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
Andrew Johnson:
Part of the reason books are still doing well is because they're just easier to use.
I think you are right about this. I'm not sure the technology is quite there yet to make eTexts more desirable than physical books. However, I think with Indiana University's latest move we are heading that way. 60 to 70 percent off the price of the book might make up for any inconvenience that may exist.
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
Just bought all my books....from Amazon
Jul '10
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
Nico Perrino:
What is new and revolutionary is that the school has negotiated a deal with a number of eText publishers that will reduce the cost of the different texts by 60 to 70 percent....
The cost for these eTexts will be levied within the tuition bill, and the texts automatically uploaded to my school's online course management system, Oncourse.
Monopoly of product? Check.
Price controls? Check.
Guaranteed sales? Check.
Customers' costs indirect & wrapped into some other bill? Check.
Public-Private Partnership? Check.
If it looks like crony capitalism, and smells like crony capitalism...
I do agree with your thesis, Nico. This is probably the beginning of the end for the college bookstores. It will come through anti-competitive agreements like these, and even worse, idiotic legislative mandates.
Apr '11
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
E-books: Less cost for individual textbook users, but tremendous long-term profit for e-sellers as they are guaranteed to sell the same book to many different devices over time. And all powered by coal and susceptible to glitches and endless electronic diddling in the guise of updates. Many is the time that I have come upon old textbooks, and had the serendipitous pleasure of discovering information where I wasn't even looking for it, as well as yellow highlighted text and jotted notes in margins. Never would have downloaded the book but found it by pure chance on a shelf somewhere. And when the power goes off...(Here I will foment some paranoia) or is intentionally shut off.... the book is still there. Any titles come to mind which might accidentally disappear? Worth thinking about.
Dec '10
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
After three years of online study at AMU I liked my ebooks much more than hardcopy. The ability to search for a bit of a phrase that stuck while reading is worth any hastle otherwise created by the format.
Aug '10
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
I haven't been a university student for about 14 years, but I remember one of my pet peeves from my student days was how often I would be required to purchase a textbook only to find that the course or the professor only required that I read a portion of it. Sometimes, the course required that I read about half of the text. Sometimes, the professor was only interested in a few chapters.
So that's one reason I like the idea of eBooks. A well-designed system would allow the student to pay only for the amount of the text they actually need for the class.
<devil's advocate mode = on>
On the other hand, the bookshelf in my apartment that holds all my old textbooks helps convince the babes that I'm really brainy.
<devil's advocate mode = off>
Apr '11
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
Ah! If only we had digital textbooks in my day as an option. I still remember getting to college, being told that we can buy used textbooks and sell our textbooks back. I also remember used books being understocked and being told my new textbooks couldn't be sold back as used as a "new edition" was being released -- which usually meant same as the previous edition with a couple chapters rearranged. Such is my cynicism.
Hopefully, digital formats will create options for students. Of course, the disadvantage is that you can't sell a digital format back. Textbooks can be re-used or given away. Ebooks can't be transferred. Being from a family of readers, we like being able to share books we truly enjoy or find notable. I've found with my tablet Kindle app, I grab books that are $1 or better, free. New releases I want I still buy the hard copy. A slight digression, but it's related to the concept.
Ebooks won't stop edition creep, I suspect. If anything it may even increase to avoid "illicit" sharing of e-texts. It's all speculation on my part, really.
Jun '10
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
I'm not sure I want a digital trail left behind for everything I read. If I pay cash for a hardback copy of "An Illustrated History of the Brassiere," there'll be no digital transaction (involving me) that needs recording. I haven't bought that particular title. Just an example. Naturally, I'd only be interested in the history of fabric and engineering advances.
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
As I recall -- and this was all back during the McKinley administration -- professors could make a lot of money by writing textbooks and then requiring them in their classes. I wonder how this new e-book wave may change that? Will professors just bypass publishers altogether, "publish" a book as a PDF?
Jul '11
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
Had electronic books in college. Didn't like 'em. Gimme a real book any day of the week. And if your pocketbook is hurting, there are always foreign editions on amazon for 1/3 the price. It's a nice (albeit horribly illegal for some reason *cough* monopoly *cough*) way of sticking it to the man.
-E
Aug '11
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
Funny, one my book reps and I were just talking about this the other day. From a faculty perspective, the ebook offers a lot of advantages: lower costs to students (yes, faculty really do consider this), opportunities for customization, and a more efficient supply chain.
In the traditional model, the campus bookstore drives the process because they are competing with third party used book sellers, book renters, and external mandates. On my campus, as soon as the next semester schedule is finalized (I just made the spring semester assignments), the campus bookstore starts a relentless drumbeat of requests for textbook information. In my department (IT in a business school), information is constantly changing--it takes time for the conscientious faculty member to evaluate new texts/editions--so having an electronic delivery method enables us to be much more nimble in finding and using current texts. The reader technology is constantly improving--I've found the new readers easy to use.
Apr '11
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
I have to admit, being a seller of used books, I'm kind of biased towards the physical book.
May '10
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
A couple other trends to keep in mind:
Amazon is working with public libraries to create an ebook lending service. It works basically the same way as taking out paper books from a library except there's no danger of late fees, because the ebook is automatically removed from your e-reader when the due date arrives.
Also, it's only a matter of time before the ebook industry steals a page from the game industry and introduces microtransactions. They might even learn from the hugely successful but misleadingly named "Free to Play" trend. In other words, an ebook might be offered for free or cheap, but periphal features and augmentations are not.
It's easy to imagine how this would be applied to fiction. After finishing a novel, you might have the option of exploring a particular character's backstory or peripheral mini-adventure for a small charge. Or you might have the option to buy a sneak preview into the sequel. Or you might be able to buy accompanying illustrations. The gist is that they nickel-and-dime you with attractive bonus content... which doesn't always feel like bonus content.
Non-fiction will inevitably be affected, too.
May '10
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
I love browsing used bookstores, but I never sell to them. They offer so little in return that I prefer to either give my books away to a library or use a book swap service.
Apr '11
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
What we need is an open source e-raiding platform like a tablet PC for example. Then e-books can be like music, and videos, free to the users of torrenting. The only way I see making money from this is perhaps a monthly fee to access a whole library of books, with new books being added at a certain rate yearly and the option to buy a specific book faster if you really want it. I say bring on the theft of text books, they are a complete racket and deserve a bit of profit loss. Plus everyone knows that text books are worthless. I think I have like 10 that I never even had to open. Go to Wikipedia if you need a general primer.
Jul '11
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
A good text book (electronic or otherwise) is more than a primer. Sure, if I need a refresher on latent heat versus sensible heat I can go to wikipedia, but to evaluate convective heat transfer across a bundle of tubes or determine atmospheric psychometric properties I definitely want a text book.
-E
Apr '11
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
Maybe in physics then. In biology everything worth knowing you can get for free from Reviews. Well free to students at universities with subscriptions. I just feel like I never used my text books when I was in college. All the other books I bought I used/read but text books really they were kind of worthless and all of them i could have gotten at the library to look at.
Feb '11
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
It's been almost three decades since I was in college, but here's my two-cents' worth:
I hope this goes through. Why? Because the print version will be cheaper.
See, there are things I don't mind reading on the computer: news, fun stuff (fantasy, scifi, etc.) Then there are the serious things. Textbooks have always been overpriced. Why? Because they were required. I'll just ignore the etext and buy the much cheaper hardcopy. That way I can highlight, write notes in the margins, bookmark.
Yeah, I know, supposedly computer software has made doing all of the above easy. When I was in 7th grade, Dad gave me an early 4-function calculator. It wasn't until my freshman year of college (1978) that calculators were good enough to replace my slide rule. I'm not yet impressed.
Of course, most textbooks aren't worth being called 'books'. They suck. If they weren't 'required' I wouldn't buy one. The hard sciences are the only exemption. One must keep up. English, Math, History, use original sources. Most of them are published quite cheaply by Penguin Press.
Jul '11
Re: The End of College Bookstores?
It sounds like there is general displeasure with textbooks in general more than displeasure with physical copies of textbooks. I sympathize; I have several that I have not opened since I graduated. However, some that have been extremely useful. Is that unique to my major (Chemical Engineering)? Perhaps it applies to lower level courses more so than Junior/Senior courses which require texts with greater depth?
Just to specify, the textbooks that I still find very useful/interesting to have include: Heat Transfer, Separations, Fluid Mechanics, Energy and the Environment, Air Pollution, Calculus (differential and integral, not multi-variable or PDE [though I really wish a had a good reference for that]), and Material Balances.
-E
Edited on September 22, 2011 at 10:54pm