As much as I like the idea of a 3D electronic book, I don't believe it will make an huge impact; maybe when electronic media get to the point where writing notes and going back and forth are really as easy as with a physical book.
One of the pressures we face as textbook authors is that unless I have a very good website to provide additional support (ppt lectures, electronic versions of all figures, programs, etc) I lose a lot of adopters. As Bruce knows that's a lot of work. The analogy between book reps and pharmaceutical reps is interesting. However there is an order of magnitude difference in renumeration. I've known health science faculty to give up tenure to become drug reps but I have never seen that happen with a physics or engineering faculty member. However, in both cases the job of the rep has changed from knowing a lot about the product to being able to get into a faculty office and get samples to someone who really doesn't want to talk to you. In NM, most UNM students are self-supporting and wind up buying their own textbooks. There has been a huge cultural shift which goes beyond the money issue. I would never think of selling a book after taking a class but students today have an entirely different attitude towards media. Of course when a biology 101 textbook costs $250 (really does) the $$ matter. What does seem to be changing is the popularity of on-line courses. At UNM there are now 8000 student enrollments in such classes each semester. For many years I fought against such classes as not being up to the standards of a live class with real interaction. But with the new tools available to put together on-line courses and to interact with students on-line, I'm reconsidering my view. Perhaps that's where Bruce and I might find a lot of agreement. With an on-line format, students can access a lot of 3D demos and all kinds of other material that could not be in a physical book. I'm going to develop such a course this fall. Ed __________ Ed Angel Chair, Board of Directors, Santa Fe Complex Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico 1017 Sierra Pinon Santa Fe, NM 87501 505-984-0136 (home) an...@cs.unm.edu 505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel http://artslab.unm.edu http://sfcomplex.org On Jul 23, 2011, at 2:54 PM, Bruce Sherwood wrote: > I'll mention that the smart physics textbook editor at Wiley, whom we > work with, a few years ago gave a very analytical talk at a physics > education conference on why textbooks MUST move to electronic form. He > gave a convincing summary of how the current scheme is dysfunctional > for everyone -- students, authors, faculty, and publishers. The only > group he could identify for whom it sort of works is university > bookstores, and even that group is going under as students buy books > over the web. > > The current high costs are due not only to production costs but also > to the counterintuitive situation that competition drives prices > higher. Publishers spend a lot of money on reps who try desperately to > get a few minutes face time to tell uninterested faculty why they > should use the latest book. The situation is similar to that of > pharmaceuticals, where company reps try to talk to doctors. The > fundamental issue is that in the case of both textbooks and drugs, the > prescriber isn't the same person as the buyer. > > Among the many dysfunctions one is almost humorous. A lot of money is > spent trucking books back and forth between publishers and university > bookstores, thanks to tax laws that require paying taxes on physical > inventory. > > An interesting aspect of textbook prices is that it is the parents who > pay the (high) price to buy the textbook, but it is the student who > gets the (significant) money from selling the used book. This exchange > presumably contributes to the fact that very few students now keep > their college textbooks. > > One possible change that interests our editor and us is that one can > imagine making an electronic textbook be highly interactive, not just > a replacement for paper, in which case an ebook could look much more > attractive. This possible context is one of the motivations for the > work I'm doing with David Scherer to make it easy to write 3D > animations that run in a browser. We're making good progress on this. > > Bruce > > On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 1:39 PM, Edward Angel <an...@cs.unm.edu> wrote: >> I suspect it's a rather hopeless venture, at least for technical books. >> I just spent a couple of days with my editors at Addison-Wesley. Since I >> have about 250 adoptions of my textbook in the US, both I and AW are very >> interested in all these issues and have been following the various attempts >> publishers are using to try to make money using the internet. For example, >> AW created CourseSmart where students get access to the book on the internet >> for the semester at about half of what the physical book would cost. That >> venture doesn't seem to be doing very well. Part of the reason is purely >> economic. If a student can resell the book to the bookstore at the end of >> the semester for 50% then why use the electronic version. >> But the most salient factor seems to be that students do not like reading >> technical books on ipads, kindles or any other device. One interesting >> option is that some publishers are offering is a combined option where you >> get both the physical book and the electronic version for a little more than >> the cost of the physical book. Students seem to like option that since they >> can have the electronic version on a portable device while in class but use >> the physical book to study with. But of course that costs even more than the >> outrageous prices students have to pay for just the physical book. >> All in all, the publishers have not a clue as to how to get out of the death >> spiral they're in. Once the used book sellers got organized, the publishers >> responded by hounding authors to do new editions every couple of years, an >> act that drove the price of textbooks through the roof since most of the >> cost is in the production of the book not in the marginal cost of printing >> more copies. It's gotten to the point where at a place like UNM where >> students really struggle financially, the cost of textbooks is edging to >> towards the cost of tuition. Many of us authors have seen our royalties stay >> the same as the cost of books rises while the numbers sold go down but we >> don't feel very good about the situation. >> Ed >> >> __________ >> Ed Angel >> >> Chair, Board of Directors, Santa Fe Complex >> Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory >> (ARTS Lab) >> Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico >> >> 1017 Sierra Pinon >> Santa Fe, NM 87501 >> 505-984-0136 (home) an...@cs.unm.edu >> 505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel >> http://artslab.unm.edu >> http://sfcomplex.org >> On Jul 19, 2011, at 9:17 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: >> >> Interesting: digital rental of text books at amazon: >> http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=16101 >> Others have done this sort of thing but this is pretty big-time. And I >> notice that this is not only for the kindle device, but also for your >> computer, phone, ipad via their kindle apps, which now allow color, even >> though the kindle itself is black/white only. >> -- Owen >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Santa Fe Complex >> "discuss" group. >> To post to this group, send email to disc...@sfcomplex.org >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> discuss+unsubscr...@sfcomplex.org >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/a/sfcomplex.org/group/discuss >> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >> > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
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