On California's Hard Copy Textbook Purchase Ban

Rupert Neate:

"Textbooks are outdated, in my opinion," said the film-star-turned-politician. "For so many years, we've been trying to teach exactly the same way. Our children get their information from the internet, downloaded on to their iPods, and in Twitter feeds to their phones. Basically, kids feel as comfortable with their electronic devices as I was with my pencils and crayons

"So why are California's school students still forced to lug around antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks?"

State officials said textbooks typically cost between $75 (£46) and $100, far more than their digital equivalents.

A spokesman for Pearson said it has been planning for the switch from printed text to digital for a decade, but conceded that the company will collect less money per unit from digital sales. The company added the move would allow it to save money on printing and distribution costs.

I have been a slow, but generally pleased user of electronic books (stanza, kindle and open source) on my iphone. It is time to transition and save money....

Matthew Garrahan & Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson have more:

"But our students still learn from instructional materials in formats made possible by Gutenberg's printing press. It's nonsensical - and expensive - to look to traditional hard-bound books when information is so readily available in electronic form."

However, with California facing a record $24bn budget deficit the state could struggle with high start-up costs - particularly as Mr Schwarzenegger has pledged to make digital text books available to each of the state's 2m students.

"The main practicality is that until students have full and equal access to computers, this would be very difficult to phase in," wrote Citigroup analysts in a research note.

The state is one of the biggest purchasers of school textbooks in the world so the transition to digital learning could have big implications for publishers, such as Pearson, owner of the Financial Times.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 10, 2009 1:44 AM
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