Digital textbooks raise concerns.STUDENTS AT SOME UNIVERSITIES may be carrying fewer textbooks this fall if a new digital project takes off. The Universal Digital Textbook Program, launched by MBS Textbook Exchange, will begin offering textbooks in PDF format at 10 college and university bookstores across the country. "This is a natural progression for us," says Virginia France, marketing director at the Princeton University Store, an independent bookstore on the Princeton (N.J.) campus. "We believe that digital textbooks are the wave of the future. We don't think they'll replace textbooks, but we want to offer students the opportunity to get them if they want them." Ten titles will initially be offered from publishers such as Houghton Mifflin, Wiley, McGraw-Hill, Thompson Learning, and SAGE Publications, says France. And, although print versions of the books will still be available, the lower price of the e-books may attract students. "We'll be selling digital e-book cards for one-third less than the cost of a print book," says France. "The card is activated at the register with a code, then the student logs on to a website, enters the code, and downloads the book to their computer." The e-books are encoded with DRM (digital rights management), which places strict limits on their usage. For example, they can be viewed only on the computer to which they were downloaded. They cannot be copied, and printing is limited to small passages. Most troubling to some critics, however, is that textbook activation expires after five months, leaving the books unusable. Besides the Princeton store, other bookstores participating in the pilot are at the University of Utah The University of Utah (also The U or the U of U or the UU), located in Salt Lake City, is the flagship public research university in the state of Utah, and one of 10 institutions that make up the Utah System of Higher Education. , University of Oregon The University of Oregon is a public university located in Eugene, Oregon. The university was founded in 1876, graduating its first class two years later. The University of Oregon is one of 60 members of the Association of American Universities. , Portland Community College (Ore.), California State University-Fullerton, The Book Exchange at West Virginia University West Virginia University, mainly at Morgantown; coeducational; land-grant and state supported; est. and opened 1867 as an agricultural college, renamed 1868. , The Co-op Bookstore at Louisiana State University Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, generally known as Louisiana State University or LSU, is a public, coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and the main campus of the Louisiana State University System. , Bowling Green State University Bowling Green State University, at Bowling Green, Ohio; coeducational; chartered 1910 as a normal school, opened 1914. It became a college in 1929, a university in 1935. (Ohio), Georgetown College (Ky.), and Morehead State University History Morehead State University was originally founded as a private teacher's college in 1887, The Morehead Normal School. It is said to have been comprised of 13 buildings with a layout in the shape of a crescent moon for some period prior to 1922. (Ky.). This Universal Digital Textbook Program project is just one of several digital textbook experiments going on across the country. The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey is the state-run health sciences institution of New Jersey and comprises eight distinct academic units: the New Jersey Medical School, the New Jersey Dental School, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the School of is experimenting with digitally capturing all curriculum material for the four years of dental school and providing it to students on a single DVD. The DVDs are updated twice a year with the most current material.--T.G. |
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