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Textbooks: A Value Proposition
11/13/2007
Libraries can provide copies on short-term loan for all students unwilling or unable to purchase a textbook. The proposed Ohio Senate legislation would mandate all state institutions of higher education to make available at least two copies of all required textbooks and other learning materials in the appropriate campus libraries. Many libraries would be hard-pressed to meet this requirement without significant increases in funding. One mid-sized community college in Ohio calculated that it would cost $131,730 to purchase two copies of all required texts for the Fall 2007 quarter. The materials budget for this same library is $280,000 per year; 47 percent of the materials budget would be used to pay for the books for one academic quarter.
Such a solution has severe limits in practice as well. The popularity of the textbooks would likely result in the books being placed on “closed reserve” and not permitted to leave the library. This would limit students’ study opportunities and make “open book” in-class tests impossible. Librarians also observe that students do not sit and read print materials on reserve—they photocopy them. Such a system blatantly encourages copyright infringement.
Students need to build a professional bookcase. This is contested territory. Andrew Spielman, associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Dentistry at New York University, sees building a personal library as useful for graduates of the NYU Dentistry program. The school, which graduates approximately 8 percent of all newly minted dentists, has worked with VitalSource to create an off-line digital text as a primary resource available to NYU dental students. The students access a searchable set of learning materials aggregated from content taken from a variety of publishers. The DVD on which the materials are distributed can be moved among computers, individual notes can be shared among class members, and the students retain access to the materials after graduation.
On the other hand, outside of Gray’s Anatomy, how many print books actually endure as a trusted source of discipline-based knowledge? Name the countries and draw their boundaries on a map of the African continent. Recommend a treatment for depression. Decide where to dangle that participle. To accomplish any of these tasks, students are ill-advised to reach to a bookshelf for their college text. By the way, even Gray’s Anatomy has gone digital with CD-ROMs, websites and author discussion boards updating the print text. A subscription model, more than an ownership model, might provide more benefits to future dentists, as well as their future patients.
Spielman has been tracking student and faculty response to the Vital Book for the past several years. Once experienced with the digital bookshelf, the majority of students see the benefits of digital, though a notable minority still prefers print. Frank Daniels, VitalSource’s CEO, reports that in VitalSource’s experience 18 percent of students prefer digital to print when the content is equivalently priced
In May in San Francisco, experts from leading universities, libraries, and research institutions around the world met as part of an ongoing effort to address a pressing issue: archiving the world's history, right up to today. The Quilt, a coalition of 28 regional network organizations, has added XO Communications Services to its authorized vendor list. The Quilt represents 200 universities and thousands of other educational institutions across the United States. With this new relationship, Quilt members can purchase XO's high-speed IP transit and network transport services at competitive rates. At the NECC 2008 conference in Texas this week, Wimba launched a new version of Wimba Classroom, the virtual classroom component of the company's Collaboration Suite. The new 5.2 release expands options for classroom capture and adds a variety of other functional and ease of use features. The lure of automating workflow online so human intervention is minimized is continually reinforced in the minds of higher education administrators by examples of automated campus systems such as financials, student information systems, and other enterprise systems. But what's good for management is not always good for learning. Cognos, which IBM acquired in January, has released an update to its business intelligence software that will run on the Linux operating system on IBM System z mainframes. IBM Cognos 8 BI was being developed by the two companies prior to the acquisition, but assimilation of Cognos into IBM accelerated development. Facebook is a way to greet a colleague as if she or he is on your own campus: a wave at a distance, a hello at the corner burrito place, a honk as you both leave the campus parking lot. Informal collegiality has been extended over the miles.
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