As reported earlier, several bills have been introduced this Regular Session addressing the rising cost of textbooks. Also, the Legislative Budget Board has recommended that college texts in the Core Curriculum be chosen from a statewide adoption list picked by a panel of faculty members. Please review the earlier post on this subject.
TCCTA has consistently opposed measures that restrict the professional judgment of college instructors in selecting the most appropriate material for their students. Here are the TCCTA "Talking Points" on the issue of textbook selection, for use by members in communicating with policy makers.
One facet of the debate that deserves more discussion is the degree to which the online marketplace is already driving down prices. These savings are difficult to measure, and unlikely to show up in surveys on the retail cost of books and supplemental material. Understandably, such survey data is often used by lawmakers in formulating their decisions, along with anecdotal testimony from students. These sources may not tell the whole story.
Two developments come to mind. The following strategies go beyond the purchase of books online by students to circumvent the college or university bookstore.
Renting Textbooks
If you ask around, students are already doing this and are happy to talk about it. Online sites currently allow individuals to order titles in virtually all disciplines. The book is shipped expeditiously and the rental fee is a small percentage of the cost of the text. (It's easy to see how this could be profitable over time.) Students report that, in a typical arrangement, the user agrees to return the book in the same container in which it arrived. Interestingly, users are also allowed to "mark up" a text, with stipulated restrictions. Obviously: Destroy or lose it, you own it. In a sense the process resembles renting movies from NetFlix or Blockbuster, except for a longer duration, such as a semester.
Reportedly there have been legal challenges involving copyright restrictions, but, so far at least, the sites are operating, and students are chatting up the trend with classmates.
Two sites are discussed frequently by students (in a classroom experiment conducted by Your Humble Scribe, using breathtakingly unscientific survey methodology). One online company is Chegg.com. Another is campusbookrentals.com. If you are unaware of sites such as these, they may be worth a look. At the very least, faculty should be aware of their existence.
The E-Book and Such
This trend has been reported widely, here and elsewhere. A number of companies have developed hand held devices that serve as books, with a growing number of features and applications. The devices can download and contain enough books to last a typical student for years, at a much smaller cost than books purchased in print form. As the technology evolves, the devices are becoming more user friendly, cheaper, and more popular with bibliophiles. Some colleges around the country distribute the devices to arriving freshmen. It's hard to tell how an increased use of these tools could be factored into the surveys on textbook costs.
One of the most popular devices these days is the Kindle, developed by Amazon. A good introduction to the latest version (selling for $359—the cost of a handful of new textbooks these days) is provided by Farhad Manjoo in a recent edition of Slate. The piece is not all positive. In fact, the author worries that the Kindle is creating a monopoly for Amazon. However, the article vividly describes the striking advantages of this technology. All you have to do is hypothetically apply the reporter's comments to today's college students and their access to instructional material. Obviously, such developments are more suitable to some disciplines and instructional strategies than others.
Interestingly, Rep. Scott Hochberg (D-Houston), who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, remarked during a recent hearing that he would like to see something equivalent to a "Kindle on every desk" for public school students. It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to picture college students gravitating to this kind of format on their own if it suits their needs.
Witnesses before various committees have testified that the technology is not quite ready, but it can't be far off.
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