Textbooks Changing Format: What Is Next?

Written by SAM REAVES

The SIGNAL
April 13th, 2009

Atlanta – Due to emerging technological innovation, universities across the globe are

experiencing a great shift in the production, sale, and distribution of textbooks. In fact, the day in

which a customer picks a bound book off a shelf may come to end within the next decade.

Publishers have selected two popular formats for the future: the e-book, which stands for

electronic book, and the loose-leaf textbook.

The loose-leaf textbook is a package of a full textbook’s pages that usually includes a

supplement CD or online code. Because the book is not bound, students or instructors who

purchase the book must also purchase a binder to store the pages. But aside from the just

different physical characteristics, the loose-leaf carries a broad economic change through its

existence.

“In a university like Georgia State, you’ll have a book that may go through students’ hands a

total of five or six times,” said local Textbook Department Manager C. Human about the average

bound textbook and the cycle it follows from bookstore to student, back to the bookstore for sale

again. “But when it comes to the loose-leaf, it’s a one-time use; it’s a disposable book.” Because

loose-leaf textbooks are not bound and secure, and often carry online codes that are only

available for one semester, most bookstores will not accept them for resale. This poses a great

economic threat to campuses worldwide because university bookstores rely on income from used
textbooks, mainly to cut losses from those unsold and returned. Without a used book market,

these stores must find a way to stay afloat.

Fortunately, this is good for the consumer in the short run. “There is a significant pricing

difference between a new loose-leaf and a new textbook,” Human added. “I have not seen a

loose-leaf yet that costs more than the used textbook.” By cutting out the binding process and

ensuring that sales continue on a semester basis, publishers are able to price loose-leaf textbooks

incredibly cheap. Following suit, bookstores also lower prices, passing on savings to the

consumer.

But there is a catch. At the end of the semester, bookstores typically grant students half of a

book’s value when resold back to the store if instructors have adopted it for the next semester.

Human commented on the opportunity of buyback, “Keep in mind, even if you pay 10 or 15

dollars more [for the used book], there is a good possibility that you will be able to get half back

at the end of the semester.” By choosing quick, up front savings at the time of purchase, a

student may sacrifice an extra 10 or 15 dollars that they could save after the buy back process at

the end of the semester.

So the question arises, which would students prefer? The SIGNAL spoke with Georgia State

sophomore Darren Head. “If I had to pay out-of-pocket,” he began, “I’d probably have to go

with the loose-leaf over a [bound] textbook because of the cheaper price at the time, even though

I know I could sell it back.” The common lack of capital that Ramen-eating college students
adopt is not farfetched, so why would anyone believe the majority of students would take

advantage of a small break at the end of the semester when they could save now?

The answer is green. Especially in these economic times, when the Obama administration has

been calling for environmental friendly jobs and ordinances, the time for saving trees and

recycling has become an important objective. With their single-sale and disposable nature, loose-

leaf textbooks leave a trail of trash. Publishers engage in a horrifically exponential growth in the

amount of waste generated by textbooks by increasing the need for resources. First, the amount

of books must increase to meet the every-semester demand from stores, and then students throw

away an equal amount when their store will not repurchase the title. Groups of students involved

in sustainable energy make an effort to buy recyclable textbooks that can be used for more than a

single semester.

Though loose-leaf textbooks are gaining ground in the markets of today’s campuses, there is one

alternative to the typical bound book that will surpass its benefits in the near future. Completely

paperless, trees will stand by the millions in comparison to the forest destruction that normal

books require. This format is the e-book.

Without calculation as to the carbon footprint of the special readers and laptops that are required

to access them, e-books have virtually zero economic negatives. There are no air-polluting and

gas-guzzling trucks to transport them, nor are there customers bearing the same environmental

woes picking them up from stores; the beauty of the e-book is in its digital form.
The distribution and printing processes of low-tech textbooks are a thing of the past. No longer

will a book ever run out of stock, or will a customer have to pay a shipping fee to purchase a

book from an online store like Amazon. Consumers can currently at the click of a mouse

purchase e-books from many publishers from their respected web sites.

Because of this, the question arises: What about the bookstores? How can they stay alive?

Human points out “We don’t have a standardized system of accessing e-books. There are so

many ways of distributing them.” Taking advantage of this gap, Follett, Georgia State’s third-

party management of its bookstore, has introduced, as Human describes it, “the Facebook of

textbooks” titled CaféScribe. Users signed up into this social network can not only purchase

textbooks through the portal, but also attach their own notes taken in class or comment to a

certain book, and allow other users to “rank, rate, and review” those additions. This is an

innovation that could keep book vendors, though losing money in-store or completely removing

store operations, in business for the long run.

And now the question arises: How would students feel about e-books? “I do believe that e-books

are the way to go,” decided student Darren Head. “I feel that there is no reason to use a textbook,

or a loose-leaf based textbook, because when it’s online, you’re not cutting down a tree to print

all these pages.” Thankfully, those students mentioned earlier who crave an environmentally

friendly way to learn actually save both money and trees by using e-books. But what about those

students wishing to print their digital textbooks? Head explained further how he believed the

presence of e-books would help his class. “The professor could just tell you to print only what
you need. For instance if they say, ‘Let’s skip chapters six, seven, and eight,’ you would save all

these hundreds of pages you’ll never ever use, and would probably not get recycled.”

So with the massive innovations that the e-books present, the final question comes to mind: Just

when will e-books overtake textbooks as our main source of information in classrooms? Should

consumers leave behind their trusty pen and notebook for a high-tech device such as Amazon’s

Kindle? “It’s hard to predict when [e-books] are going to make landfall and get to a level where

you don’t even think about textbooks anymore,” Human theorized. “The way I see it, we still

have a good 10 years ahead of us.” So before students run eagerly to pick up their e-book readers

from various department stores such as Target or Wal-Mart, they must remember that not every

book has formatted for mainstream use yet. But that time is not too far over the horizon.
 Sources
Carl Human - thechuman@aol.com - 678 777 6564
Follet Textbook Department Manager at Georgia State University
Preferred to remain C. Human to remain semi-anonymous with business peers

Darren Head - hip_hop_neverstops@hotmail.com - 678 378 7096

Student