Over the weekend, Apple came out with an interactive textbook program for the iPad. As I read the headline in the news, I immediately felt my heart pound – it was one more reason to convince myself to go out and buy one, even though I knew it was definitely not a necessity. Though, if e-textbooks were involved, maybe, just maybe, the $500 price tag would be worth it.
As I kept reading, I was rather unpleasantly surprised. The e-textbook program was for high school students — because that makes sense. Wouldn’t making their interactive textbooks available for college students be a much more lucrative market? Sure, high schools are advancing their technology, but I can’t imagine a high school using, and more importantly trusting high school students with, brand new iPads. If they were to open up the market to college students, however, the campus bookstore might have just a little more competition.
This sparked a question in my mind – are e-textbooks really the future, and should we buy into the idea that digital text could be just as useful as physical books? Let’s face it – for the most part we are all technology-hungry people, looking for the next shiny, new item that allows us to compartmentalize and organize our lives into an even smaller, more lightweight space.
Though you might not have given in to buying an e-reader yet, simply because you just can’t bring yourself to spend the few hundred dollars when there are perfectly good campus and public libraries in town, now that college textbooks are becoming more available, this could change our outlooks completely. Textbooks can range from $10 to $150, and let’s face it – most of them aren’t in the $10 price range. Nook offers up to 60 percent savings on e-textbooks, and Apple projected that their textbooks would be under $15 each, making the cost nothing to complain about. While the initial cost of the tablet or e-reader can empty your wallet, in the long run saving the hundreds of dollars each semester makes it a good student buy. And while you’re saving the money on your books, why not cut out having to deal with the hassle of the infamous “student book buy-back,” where 50 percent of the cost is guaranteed back but somehow it always ends up being pennies on the dollar.
As e-textbooks have grown in popularity over the past year, users now have the ability to highlight, bookmark and add notes to their textbooks. Let’s be honest, you really can’t beat that. Buying into the e-reader notion would mean no more grimy, used books complete with rips, tears and stains. No more lugging heavy books to class each day. Just a clean, digital slate to read, edit and study – it’s a student dream come true.
While the Apple technology isn’t there for college text yet, hopefully soon textbooks we can use will be added to their interactive program, giving more incentive for students to shell out the one time cost and save for the rest of their college career. While e-textbooks aren’t where they need to be to completely cater to college student needs right now, over the next couple of months you may start to see more incentives to turn from the bookstore to the e-reader for an easy, cheap and organized way to learn. It’s time to turn to the digital age.
Emily Rhodes is the opinion editor for the Traveler. She is a journalism major.
Her column appears every other Monday.