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Show AggieLife Page 8 Monday, Aug. 24, 2009 Digital textbooks could save money in the future By DERBY COX McClatchy-Tribune PEOPLE STROLL THE STREETS in the town of Annecy, France. USU student Brooke Evans visited Annecy as part of the USU Study Abroad Program. photo courtesy Brooke Evans Aggies around the world My favorite Frenchy things Oh la la. Who could have imagined that after piles and piles of paperwork, hours of meetings, orientations, reading packets and pamphlets, appointments and applications the day would actually come that I had been planning for so long? After doing all of the demarches to get my French visa (remuer ciel et terre), applying for all three of my study abroad programs, getting my passport and four kinds of insurance, because France is just like that, and making 10,000 copies of everything, I was ready to go. It is like magic. Sometimes I forget where I am, but then I look around at the lake, the Alps and all the crazy, awesome Frenchies everywhere and I remember: “Oh my heck, I’m in France.” The blessed land of wine and cheese is home of the Eiffel tower, the Louvre, the Alps, l’amour, art, bakeries, cafés and a bunch of awesome people, who really are nice, despite the snobby stereotype. If you ever want to feel fat, just come to France. Everything is seriously smaller here: rooms, passageways and people, though I’m not saying it is a bad thing. I swear French girls are so skinny because they constantly smoke, only drink coffee and burn all their calories shopping. Whatever their secret, it works. If I were to rewrite the famous song from “Sound of Music” it would be retitled “These are a Few of my Favorite Frenchie Things” and it would go like this: Fromage (cheese) and vélos (bikes) and bakeries on every corner. Smart cars, and Paris and no public bath rooms (actually, I really hate that one), walking all over and taking the metro, these are few of my Frenchie favorite things. No air conditioning, people smoking everywhere, people who treat their dogs like their children, eating nutella with a spoon, bread with every meal, markets, bisous, and musées (museums) and stinky European B.O. and pique niques au parc. (And just today, listening to Debussy in the rain). Being in France for the D-Day Commemoration, the fete de la Musique, the French Open, Bastille Day and the Tour de France has been so awesome. I’m learning a beautiful language, getting to know this beautiful country and making friends from all over the world. Brooke Evans is part of the USU Study Abroad Program in Annecy, France. Look for more columns from USU Study Abroad students each Monday in The Utah Statesman. An old adage states, “As California goes, so goes the nation.” If that’s true, then advocates of textbook reform – and college students bearing the brunt of spiraling textbook prices – have to be excited by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s push to use digital textbooks in high schools. So-called e-textbooks present a slew of advantages over their print brethren: they’re cheaper, easily searchable, and in some cases, can be modified to better fit the teacher’s vision for the course. But while digital textbooks may have entered the public consciousness only recently, the idea has been around far longer. A growing number of publishers – both individuals and major textbook companies – are offering their content digitally, in some cases for little or no charge. “One big positive of free books is that it gets you out of the horribly exploitative textbook market,” wrote Fullerton College professor Ben Crowell in an e-mail. “It’s just a scandal that they’re charging students as much as $250 for an organic chemistry book, and bringing out a new edition every three years in order to kill off the used book market.” The Yale-educated physics professor began his digital textbook 12 years ago, when his lecture notes “gradually morphed” into a book. His interest in the open-source operating system Linux convinced him that free was the way to go, and his textbook is available for anyone to use at www.lightandmatter.com. More than 40 colleges and high schools have adopted the book, according to the Web site. Crowell isn’t alone. He runs a site (www. theassayer.org), which catalogues free books on everything from philosophy to military science. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology makes much of its course materials, including textbooks and videos of lectures, available on its open courseware site (http://ocw.mit.edu). Professors at other prestigious institutions, such as the California Institute of Technology, have also written and released textbooks free of charge. But the free digital textbook movement isn’t restricted to a small band of altruistic authors some people want to make money. Enter Flat World Knowledge, a two-year-old startup that lets users read its textbooks for free at www.flatworldknowledge.com. Eric Frank and Jeff Shelstad, who have a combined 31 years of experience in the traditional publishing industry, started the company after becoming disillusioned with the business. The trouble began in the 1980s, Frank said, when 60-or-so textbook publishers competed to create the largest sales force. After the companies consolidated into a few mega-publishers in the 1990s, the industry entered what Frank called a “nuclear arms race of supplements,” when companies competed to distinguish their products with extra materials like CD-ROMs. The textbook companies passed on the costs of all that competition to consumers, Frank said. Between 1986 and 2004, textbook prices rose at double the rate of inflation, according to a study conducted by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Around the turn of the millennium, students were fed up, and with the growth of the Internet, able to find alternatives, Frank said. A student in Florida could buy a used book from someone in Alaska. Desperate to kill the used book market, publishers rushed out new edition after new edition, succeeding in the short term but driving textbook prices skyward, he said. Amid the turmoil, Frank and Shelstad, both executives for Prentice Hall Business Publishing, found themselves on a train together. “We looked at each other and said, ‘Is anybody happy in this industry? ... Who are the constituents? Students, they hate us,’” Frank recalled. Their solution, to release digital textbooks online for free – and sell the extras, such as print copies and study guides – found a polarized response. Some looked at Frank and Shelstad “like we had two heads,” Frank said. Others asked, “Can I invest?” So far, the results have been promising, Frank said. About 70 percent of the students who have used the site for class buy products, spending a little more than $30 each, he said. About 40 percent paid around $40 for a printed black-and-white textbook with study aides, he said. Did you know you can have a favorite photo from The Statesman made into a puzzle. Yeah. Would we kid you? Go to www.aggietownsquare.com and click on Photo Reprints. Just one of a hundred things you can do at AggieTownSquare. 7wÁ®¨w ¸ Y®Á ¸® z¾^®>°®°w^® ,z^¥¨zY^®E® >¥ z >¨ * Fun and friendly social environment * Within walking distance of Campus * Bus stops right in front of Riverside * Filled with hardworking students like you * Riverside located accross from the football staduim 435.787.4985 1251 North 800 East |