E-readers may be next generation of textbooks

By: Kathleen McCann and Christine Bosnjak

Posted: 3/1/10

As spring quarter approaches in just a few weeks, many students will purchase their books at the DePaul University bookstore, where new and used copies are available, while more frugal students will order from Web sites such as Half.com and Amazon.com. Some students may even order their textbooks from Chegg.com, an online textbook rental company where books are rented for a fraction of their list price.

With increasingly more options, it is no surprise that college textbooks are available on e-readers such as Amazon's Kindle. Amazon has recently struck deals with three top textbook publishers, including Pearson, Wiley, and Cengage, who make up 60 percent of the textbook market.

Besides Amazon's Kindle, the Barnes & Noble Nook, the Sony Reader and the iPad, expected to be released in April 2010, are all portable devices specifically designed for the storage and use of books.

"I think these are an amazing invention," said sophomore Anita Mijic. "They allow for you to have access to multiple books at once without having to lug them around. It's great in terms of convenience."

The newest version of Amazon's Kindle, Kindle DX, can hold up to 3,500 books which can be purchased from the Kindle Store's collection of more than 420,000 books, magazines, newspapers and blogs. Once a book is purchased, it is available for reading in 60 seconds.

The Amazon Kindle DX, which is almost identical to the original Kindle, is marketed towards use with textbooks and reading periodicals. Textbooks can be downloaded within minutes and accessed through the device's 3G wireless technology without the need to look for a wifi spot.

The Kindle DX has a bigger screen at 9.7", the width of most magazines, and weighs 18.9 ounces. It also has a feature that can make notes and highlights on your documents, can search for a certain word and bookmark pages and can read your book outloud. Once fully charged, the Kindle's battery lasts through a week of reading.

But the Amazon Kindle is not a pioneer in electronic textbooks. E-textbooks have been available for a few years now. Web sites such as CourseSmart.com offer e-textbooks that can be accessed for 180 days for about 50 percent off the print book list price. Unlike the Kindle, e-textbooks can only be downloaded to view on one computer or accessed online from any computer - not both.

Amazon has not yet launched a specific textbook store for the Kindle but by searching the Kindle store, there are some textbooks available. Advertising Media Planning, Sixth Edition by Jack Sissors and Roger Baron, which has a list price of $79.95 is available on a Kindle e-reader for $37.77 while Strategic Planning for Public Relations, Second Edition by Ronald D. Smith has a list price of $55 and is available on a Kindle e-reader for $44. These prices are not appealing to most students when you can purchase used copies for cheaper online.

"I probably wouldn't buy them unless they were a lot cheaper," said Opsahl. "At least with real textbooks I have the opportunity to resell them." Unlike with e-readers, students can sell their books back to the school or to online buyback services for about 15 percent of the original price. The benefits of e-readers don't seem to outweigh the cons.

"The problem is that the textbook industry…doesn't seem like the most open industry in the world and the greatest indication of that is the price," said Klein. "So you would think that moving from print to electronic would open them up, but no, it's the same people in charge so they come with all these restrictions that make them maybe a dollar cheaper."

Textbooks are delivered straight to your reader for free and eliminate the need for printing, binding and shipping so it is expected that they would be cheaper than their printed counterparts but this is not the case.

"They're seeing this as an opportunity to make a little more cash and so it's not an open system, so even going from print to electronic it costs the same," said Klein.

Although convenience and utility would be maximized through the replacement of print with electronic books, there are other matters at stake such as the visual reading experience. The Kindle was designed to mimic the sensory experience of reading a paper book as closely as possible. Its size and shape are similar to that of the average paperback. Amazon states that reading from a Kindle is nothing like reading from a computer screen. Although Kindle's display produces high-quality images on a glare-free screen, the device does not come in color.

"I've got a great book collection, and there are great atlases and things like that, or there's a great book we have here, The Burnham Plan of Chicago, its wonderfully illustrated from 100 years ago and its like, would an electronic version replace that?" said Leo Klein, part time librarian at the DePaul Library.

For some, there is just something about being able to physically flip through the pages of a book.

"Most people who enjoy reading also enjoy the sensory details such as the unique touch and smell books provide that e-readers do not," senior Kirsten Opsahl said.

Originally released in 2007, the Amazon Kindle has since been replaced with several updated versions, the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX. So before forking out $489 for the newest Kindle DX, it may be worth the consideration of whether it will be outdated in a year. On the other hand, printed books are timeless. A book bought ten years ago will still function the same today, simply open the book and start reading.

Another thing to consider is that technology breaks. The Kindle's battery is sealed inside the device and cannot be replaced. Therefore, if the battery breaks, the whole device must be replaced.

When considering the allure of the possibility of having hundreds of your favorite books stored in one place, imagine what would happen if the Kindle is dropped or something else goes wrong causing the device to no longer function. Not only would one book be lost, but your entire collection.

The growing popularity of e-books is creating competition with their paper counterparts. With most weighing just over a pound, e-readers can help lighten backpacks with no need to carry around several heavy textbooks.

Although more e-books are becoming available, only a small percentage of the books required for classes at DePaul are currently available on Amazon's Kindle Web site.

While e-readers are a great resource for some, they won't be replacing traditional books completely any time soon.

"I think in terms of little novels and books of that sort, E-readers are great because you usually only read those once or twice and then they just end up taking up space," said Mijic. "But something like a school textbook I'd still prefer to be able to have in hard copy, especially because I might need to refer to it in the future."