Ebooks at Liberal Arts Colleges

"For the first nine months of 2011, e-book sales were up 137.9% at reporting publishers, to $727.7 million. Sales at all print trade segments were down in the nine months, though sales of religion products rose 6.6%."

"Textbooks are gaining, though, as publishers take advantage of the popularity of tablets like the Kindle and iPad, expanding their catalogues and offering products like rental digital books that expire after a semester or two. "

"The mass market paperback is dead. It just doesn't know it yet. Ailing for months, its demise is now all but assured by Amazon's recent bold announcement. Not the over-analyzed, over-iPad-compared Kindle Fire announcement. Rather, by the far less interesting news - to the gadgetphiles - that the least expensive, wonderfully readable and portable Kindle is now $79, a price point matched over the Black Friday holiday by Barnes & Noble for its Nook Simple Touch Limited Edition."

"In the latest chapter in the unfolding tale of the book evolution from ink to pixels, Amazon.com said Thursday that its customers now buy more e-books than print books. "

"The potential for digital growth is leading publishers to experiment with products that stretch the boundaries of traditional textbooks, slowly turning away from static text and images toward a multimedia, intuitive approach, publishers say. "

"The first-generation Kindle Fire is a strange combination of both worlds, and while it fails to fully satisfy as either it does promise to leave its mark on our media consumption devices and perhaps even make an appearance in our classrooms or our own toolkits for travel and meetings."

"The new Student Monitor data are slightly more validating to the mobile computing trend, although the percentages of students who say they own Internet-enabled smartphones (56 percent) and those who say they own iPads (9 percent) are virtually unchanged from when the firm asked the same questions in May. Apple's tablet accounted for about half of overall wireless reading devices (17 percent); it was followed by Amazon's Kindle (4 percent) and a long tail of minor players."

Interesting to see how laptop/desktop-centric students remain.

Argues for its timeliness. Accessibility might be the biggest .edu win.

"Despite the widely publicized rising sticker prices on tuition, about two-thirds of the increase in the cost of attending a four-year college from 2000 to 2009 came from nontuition sources, such as books and off-campus room and board, according to a report released on Thursday by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity."

"The case for why tablets are ready for the college classroom is pretty simple: they're a great way for students to consume media-rich digital content (the best way out there, in my opinion), they mesh well with students' lifestyles thanks to their small profile and long battery life, and tablets offer access to the world of apps, which includes some of the most innovative educational software around. Like in most other markets, the iPad has so far been the tablet of choice on college campuses. But with today's launch of the Kindle Fire, Apple may have its first viable competitor."

"In this interview, Kno Co-founder and CEO Osman Rashid explains where his eTextbook software is today, where it is headed, and how technology and the private sector will reform education."

"The Learning Class"

"Daytona State, a 35,000-student institution and a former community college, has been moving toward a "100 percent" eBook campus since 2009, using electronic texts in English, computer science, and economics courses, said Rand Spiwak, Daytona's chief financial officer and executive vice president."