Electronic books possible replacements for texts

If there's one thing students hate, it's textbook prices. With electronic books, lower prices seem more obtainable than ever. Yet even with devices including e-book readers, Google and digitized databases, the age of free, digital textbooks is still a long way off.

The Amazon Kindle, a $359 handheld device which reads downloadable books, has garnered attention for its ability to provide students with inexpensive or free academic tests. A quick search on Amazon.com, the sole provider of the device's material, reveals hundreds of compilations at no cost, mostly texts whose copyrights have expired. A search for ‘textbooks' begins in the $3 range.

Yet for all its allure, the Kindle is not without drawbacks. It's selection is limited and many recent textbooks will cost only slightly less than their paper counterparts. It's also unable to display page numbers or color.

University of Nebraska Lincoln's Love Library doesn't appear to be phased by the thought of cheap, digitized media.

"We already have a ton of digital media already. I only think it would be an additional resource. I know that you can access electronic journals, e-books, and we're talking about loads of things here," said Joan Barnes, a development and outreach librarian at Love Library. 

Also paving the way for free academic texts is the Google Books Database. The product of a recent lawsuit between Google and the Association of American Publishers and Authors Guild, the service will allow access to entire books via Google, for a price.

Google will allow the libraries of Research-1 institutions, including UNL, one terminal per every 10,000 students, granting free access to the Google Books Database. Yet even this service is a far cry from a free book load.

"Students also need to understand that you will be able to look at the book, but printing things is not very easy. It's not just a blank check to go out and print all you want. In fact they make it very difficult to print," said Elaine Westbrook, associate dean of libraries at UNL. 

"The costs are not known at this point. If that's something that the library wants to consider, we'll definitely look into it, because we're all about giving access to information to our students, faculty, and staff," she said. 

Even if imperfect, it might seem as though the advent of free, digital media bodes ill for college textbook sellers. 

Bill McKenna, director of digital products at Follett Higher Education Groups, said Follett is as interested in the subject as anyone.

"We have an e-book stores attached to every one of our campus stores that sells probably 80 (thousand) to 90 thousand titles in e-book format. Students can go to the University of Nebraska Follett site, and one of the options available will be the e-book store, where they can download e-books. They're primarily general reading, but there are some textbook titles in there as well," he said.

Follett has also acquired a company called CaféScribe, which provides its own downloadable e-book reader. Although it can only be used from a computer, the software allows notes to be transferred between two owners of the same book, and Follett promises an increasingly large library.

Still, an age without textbook fees seems a distant possibility.

McKenna explained why high textbook costs persist even in digital form.

"In many cases we're able to negotiate significant discounts, generally 50 to 60 percent of a new textbook price. Many publishers feel the wrapper is the least important part of the content, and feel that the content itself has value, so trying to get them to go really low relative to the price of the print book is difficult to do," he said.

iansacks@dailynebraskan.com



CafeScribe website - http://www.cafescribe.com/