News Report 2

Mikayla Chiarello
News Report 2
9/17/2008

Link by Link
Don’t Buy That Textbook, Download It Free
This article was about what seems to be the new possible future (or lack there of) of textbooks as we know them today. It spoke on the extremely high costs of textbooks for students and how it could be detrimental to the amount of potential readers the book may have had. The prices of these books, which can be as high as a few hundred dollars, may very well deter students from buying them and therefore hinder their learning experience and obstruct their access to information. Certain professors are aware of this and are starting to do something about it. One particular professor named McAfee has boldly chosen to put his introductory economics textbook on the internet as a free download. A few other reasons he gave for doing so included the fact that the information will be much easier to update and edit which is a growing necessity especially for people in technology or medical fields. It will also enable thousands if not more people, from all around the world, to access the information in the book and gain more knowledge on the subject matter. Another Professor, Professor Baraniuk agrees saying, “If I had finished my own book, I would have finished a couple years ago. It would have taken five years. It would have spent five years in print and sold 2,000 copies.” Instead, he put it online to download and there have been 2.8 million views of his textbook as well as a Spanish translation of it. A publishing company has also started a company called CourseSmart, that puts textbooks online, but unlike these professors, although a lot cheaper, they still charge a formidable fee. In my opinion professors should put their textbooks online to download. I do understand that it is their job to write these books and need to get paid, but the price students are charged for their education is ridiculous especially since they have to pay for the class as well as the textbooks. I think that to put books online would be a lot cheaper because they wouldn’t need to be printed in full text and therefore a lot more convenient for students and other interested learners worldwide. I think this is also the next step in the future of education.