E-Textbooks: The Way Of The Future?
Since the dawn of time (or, at least since the dawn of higher education), students have been burdened with having to carry loads of textbooks with them. Many of these textbooks are extremely heavy and very expensive.
Image by Amanda Munoz.
According to InsideHigherEd.com, Northwest Missouri State University hopes to be completely free of textbooks (or, at least close to it) sometime in the near future.
Not only do e-textbooks save college students from back pain and shoulder damage, they eliminate the need to process a lot of paper- especially considering how thick a lot of university textbooks tend to be. Also, since all of us are looking for cheap textbooks, e-books usually cost a lot less because they are simply easier to put together and distribute.
The article (located here) says:
“This spring, the 6,700-student university bought e-books for about 500 students in 10 different courses — including College Algebra, Intercultural Communications, and the Enjoyment of Music. In addition, McGraw-Hill is making digital access codes available to up to 3,000 more Northwest Missouri students who are using texts available in both formats.”
To find out more about e-textbooks, please visit Zinio Digital Textbooks.
Is your campus switching to e-textbooks? If not, have you purchased an e-textbook that you needed for class? What do you think of the change to e-textbooks that some campuses are making? Let us know, leave a comment!
March 14th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
This is such an interesting post about ebooks. I also think the Amazon Kindle invention is great! I have not used one yet, but I think downloading a book without a computer, and being able to read it anywhere is such a great option.
I personally still like the feel of “regular” books - and for a college student, the option of underlining in a “regular” book is appealing. But I think ebooks are definitely a growing option for all students.