Swarthmore embraces ebooks

"Over the next five years, digital textbook sales in the United States will surpass 18% of combined new textbook sales for the Higher Education and Career Education markets. This increase will boost revenues for digital textbooks to more than $1 billion and necessitate a general overhaul of traditional textbook production processes. The growth will also create avenues for new content publishers to enter the textbook market, lead to fundamental shifts in purchasing patterns around learning materials, and expedite the formal adoption of open educational resources to augment premium digital content"

"The Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore College Libraries have significantly expanded their collection of academic ebooks through the addition of more than 40,000 titles issued since 2006 by Cambridge University Press, the University of Chicago Press, Princeton University Press, Palgrave, and many other scholarly publishers. The books are available in Tripod, and new books will be added each week as publishers issue them."

On Inkling and the challenges facing digital textbooks

"The wait is over for readers eager to download Kindle books from their local library. Some 11,000 libraries are now offering books for Amazon's ebook platform."

Given that ebooks cannot be loaned, does the shift toward them increase the "digital divide"?

"Open educational resources, electronic textbooks, and social media for teaching and learning at the University of Delaware and beyond."

" American College of Education announces its partnership with Barnes & Noble to make the NOOK Color(TM) available for free to new students enrolling in its cohort of classes beginning October 17 and November 28, 2011. The distance learning college is also introducing four new master's degree concentrations for educators as part of its October schedule. "

Addresses concerns about long term access to ebooks. Suggests ePUB as the least bad option, although DRM is an issue.

5 publishers involved in Indiana's etextbook initiative: "Here's how it works: Students in a select group of courses are required to pay a materials fee, which gets them access to the assigned electronic textbooks or other readings for the course. The university essentially becomes the broker of the textbook sales, and because it is buying in bulk and guaranteeing a high volume, officials say they can score better prices than can the campus bookstore or other retailers."

"Abstract: A self-selected agile team of liaisons conducted a high level scan of e-textbook publishing and recent implementations of e-textbooks at selected institutions to address questions and concerns we anticipate will be raised soon at Brandeis, namely: Are there examples of successful, sustainable implementations of e-textbooks? What is the status of the technology? How well do e-textbooks meet the needs of faculty and students for teaching and learning? What is the nature of the available content and its functionality? Are publishers and vendors offering suitable sales or subscription models?"

Joseph Esposito looks at different textbook reform strategies, including cutting costs via "industrial engineering" (FlatWorld), crowdsourcing, multimedia, gaming, platform, and social network. Suggests that innovation will occur at community colleges and for-profits, where faculty has less power in choosing textbook.

"as they walk the paths of Hamilton College, a poster-perfect liberal arts school in this upstate village, students are still hauling around bulky, old-fashioned textbooks - and loving it. "