Missouri School May Be First College With All Digital Textbooks
Printed college textbooks may soon become a relic of the past as
more schools follow the lead of Northwest Missouri State University,
the first college in the country that is attempting to do away with
traditional college textbooks, National Public Radio reports (“Paper
Cut: Missouri College Embraces E-Textbooks” Feb. 25, 2009).
Professors all across the nation are starting to assign digital
books, or e-books, and a full 18 percent of college students have
purchased at least one, according to the National Association of
College Stores.
At Northwest Missouri State, the school is testing out a digital
textbook program that could cut students’ textbook costs by up to 50
percent. If the pilot program is successful, the school will replace
traditional books — which can cost the average college student
nearly $1,000 a year — with laptops and other digital reader devices.
"The timing is just right. Everybody is anxious about the cost of
higher education going up," says university president Dean Hubbard.
Northwest: Paperless in Three Years?
In the fall, the digital textbook program began with four classes
and 200 students, reports the Arkansas Democrat Gazette (“Missouri
Campus Opens New Chapter With E-Textbooks,” Jan. 19, 2009). This
spring, 4,000 of the school’s 6,500 students will use the electronic
textbooks. “I think that it’s the way the world is going,” said
Hubbard, who believes that his institution will move toward a
bookless campus as fast as the availability of e-books allows.
“Publishers don’t have all textbooks online yet,” he added. “But I
would think as a realistic measure we could be totally out of the
printed textbook business in three years.”
The transition to a textbook-free campus wouldn’t be difficult,
Hubbard said, because Northwest already issues laptops to all
freshmen, allowing them to download and use e-books, and because the
school doesn’t sell new or used textbooks to students, it rents
them. The school’s textbook rental program could easily be
eliminated, Hubbard said, and save Northwest as much as $400,000 a
year in textbook inventory costs.
Not All Support Ditching Traditional Books
Although the e-books have many unique features over traditional
books — such as allowing readers to do full-text keyword searches in
just seconds, or to take pop-up interactive quizzes — e-books
haven’t won over everyone. Some students and professors aren’t ready
to go all digital, preferring the hands-on feel of physical books.
“I always worried that something would happen, like it would crash
on the night I had to study for a test,” said Jennifer Martin, a
Northwest senior. “It’s a good concept, but I didn’t like it that
much. I would rather flip pages back and forth in the textbook when
I’m studying.”
Some professors feel so strongly about traditional textbooks that
Hubbard said they teared up when he discussed his plan to move the
university away from traditional books. Hubbard said, “The
philosophy professor talked about books that were so important to
him that he took them and had them leather-bound.”