Update: To read about Wednesday’s announcement of Amazon’s Kindle DX, the large-screen, newspaper-and-textbook-friendly eBook reading device, go here.
Original Story
Electronic versions of college level textbooks may become a cheaper and more environmentally-sound option for students across the nation in the near future.
The Collegiate Retail Alliance, which received the 2009 NCCI’s leveraging excellence award, has focused its efforts on new approaches for reducing costs for college and university stores. Founded in 2000, the CRA’s new model allows for efficient business practices previously only available to large chain operations.
CourseSmart, a venture founded and supported by five major publishers of higher education materials including McGraw-Hill and Pearson Education, has converted thousands of textbooks into an electronic digital format.
With college textbooks moving into the digital age, electronic textbooks will reduce the amount of paper books used by colleges around the U.S., an approach which will eventually contribute to a more eco-friendly environment by reducing paper waste management costs on a national level.
Striking a partnership between CourseSmart and The College Retail Alliance will allow textbook publishers and college bookstores to communicate more effectively resulting in fair prices for consumers.
Chad Staples, 21, a junior at Arizona State University, agrees that e-books are a simple and straightforward way to purchase textbooks for college. “I have used an online book database before called Questia and I didn’t have to step foot into a book store at all,” Staples said to College News. “But even though the e-books may be cheaper it’s really inconvenient when I’m in class and want to follow along with the professor.”
Although he feels e-books will eventually contribute to a more eco-friendly college community, Staples said he finds fault in the electronic version of the book because the only accessible version of the text is at home on his personal computer.
According to an article from the New York Times, Amazon has released a free application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that allows Apple users to access and purchase the 240,000 e-books currently available for the Kindle.
Ian Freed, Vice President in charge of the Kindle explained that Amazon sees the e-reading application as a complement to the Kindle device and believes it could lead to more Kindle sales for its larger screen and longer battery life. Additionally, people that own both Kindle and Apple devices will benefit from the Whispersync technology which allows users to view all of their previously purchased e-books on both devices and place bookmarks on one device and have it display on the other.
There is a chance that the IPod or Kindle portable electronic devices may eventually be able to obtain access to your personal database of textbook collections, according to an online source, but this statement has not yet been confirmed.
Our Take
With electronic books becoming the wave of the future, expect college textbooks to take a whole new look.
More College News
Amazon officially debuts college-textbook friendly Kindle DX
