TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home
News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics
New iTextbook initiative brings together Wiley, McGraw-Hill, others to offer thousands of textbooks
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008By Paul Biba
If students become accustomed to e-books, then they will demand them in the future—when they have the economic clout to make a difference. Get them young!
So perhaps CourseSmart might do some good. Founded by six high-ed textbook publishers, including giants like Wiley, McGraw-Hill and Pearson, it will bring together thousands of text books on the same e-book platform. Inram’s VitalSource, which offers shared annotations, among other features, is the software in use. News release follows.
E-customization and fair prices: Two ways to help avoid a global backlash against U.S. textbooks?
Monday, May 12th, 2008
The independent Harvard Book Store moves its share of textbooks and other academic works. But how about U.S. textbook publishers’ sales in, say, Rome or Melbourne?
With overseas markets in mind, American textbook publishers may have one more reason to go electronic with content that local professors can customize. Harry Clarke, an Australian professor of economics, writes: “Greedy publishing houses who charge monopoly prices for overrated, poorly-written US-style textbooks that have limited resale value are creating incentives for their own destruction.” Now consider the customization issues—not just topic-related but geographical.
Gracefully localizing
To come up with one situation, just relevant would an environmental text be if full of U.S. examples with related legal observations that could be peculiar to the States? Might the legal angles be localized more gracefully through E rather than P? I’d love to know what textbook publishers are doing in this regard—and also hear their side. Are any doing core textbooks in E and organizing wikis that local professors can help fill in, maybe for pay?
