Ebooks at Liberal Arts Colleges

"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."

"Senior campus IT officers remain bullish on the future of eBooks. Nine-tenths (90.1 percent) of the survey participants agree or strongly agree that "eBook content will be an important source for instructional resources in five years," up from 86.5 percent in 2010 and 76.3 percent in 2009. Additionally, more than four-fifths (81.7 percent, compared to 78.6 percent in 2010 and 66.0 percent in 2009) agree/strongly agree that "eBook readers (hardware) will be important platforms for instructional content in five years.""

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."

Bowdoin makes available Kindles (since 2009)

"One in 10 college students said they have bought an electronic book in the past three months, and 56 percent of those who had purchased an eBook said it was for educational purposes, according to a study released last month by the National Association of College Stores (NACS) OnCampus Research Division." (2010)

"The American Library Association (ALA) has just released its 2011 Public Library Funding and Technology Access Survey, and among its findings, 67% of public libraries in the U.S. now offer free access to e-books for their patrons. That's up 30% since 2007. Of course, access to e-books ranges greatly from state-to-state: 100% of Maryland and Utah libraries offer e-books, while only 25% of ilbraries in Mississippi do so, for example."

"The BioBook is an interactive iPad biology college textbook that allows students and professors to create their own customized learning experience. "

"according to a research survey conducted by the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), 75% of college students say they prefer printed textbooks, citing "a fondeness for print's look and feel, as well as its permanence and ability to be resold.""

" The American Public University System wants to get more bang for its buck with e-textbooks, so the for-profit college system is enlisting its professors to write and edit digital course materials. Faculty members are submitting proposals for e-textbooks to be used in about half of the institution's general education courses by the end of 2012. And university leaders hope the recently launched APUS ePress will produce many more in-house e-textbooks in the future."

"Students' use of electronic books has grown little, if at all, over the past three years, according to international surveys of more than 6,500 college students conducted in 2008 and again this year. The finding, from ebrary's Global Student E-book Survey, surprised audience members when the survey report was previewed this week at the Charleston Conference, a gathering of librarians, publishers, and e-book vendors. Even so, presenters said they felt confident that the number of e-book users would grow more rapidly over the next six months, and that libraries and colleges must be ready to handle the demand."

Library Journal on digital transition

For the 2010 academic year, 50,000 of Ohio's 70,000 Introductory Psychology students have had a low-cost digital option available for the textbook of their instructor's choice. Developed within a University System of Ohio Project framework in collaboration with five leading publishers of psychology textbooks, the Ohio Digital Bookshelf Project emerged from three years of research and within a social network established among faculty, librarians, technologists, and the accessibility community.

"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."

That's a big move.

On Inkling and the challenges facing digital textbooks

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

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. "