The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

University Presses Are In Jeopardy

University presses are more likely to give voice to stories that might not otherwise be told, such as those involving minority perspectives. But opportunities are shrinking. As extensions of their parent schools, academic presses rarely reap profits, experts say. Many rely on school subsidies to survive. Factor in substantial budget cuts to education in many states recently, with schools downsizing a variety of programs in response, and that leaves some presses pinched — or even out of business. The number of academic presses that have died this year or are on life support isn’t known because such reporting is voluntary. Read more at:
http://diverseeducation.com/article/13181/publishing-in-peril.html

New Service Provides Textbooks For Disabled Students

When Kevin Roberts needs a textbook he goes to his college's disabled student services office for help. The office secures digital versions of the text so that Roberts, who is blind and wears hearing aids in both ears, can use a computer program that reads the material to him. t used to take colleges up to a month to get an alternative text delivered to students. But a new national partnership involving a Georgia group makes it possible for students to get the material in about three or four days. Read more at:
http://www.ajc.com/news/program-helps-students-with-184848.html

Textbook Options Range From New To None

Textbooks are not incidentals, like notebooks and pens. For most students, they are the largest costs after tuition, room and board. Students, on average, spend $700 to $1,000 a year; aspiring scientists, whose books tend to be the most expensive, can easily spend twice that. Many students who bought all their assigned books at the college bookstore as incoming freshmen eventually evolve a more frugal, eclectic approach. For those who are not prepared to go as far as Mr. LaBant, there are a variety of strategies to keep the book budget within reasonable bounds. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/education/edlife/01spending-t.html?ref=edlife

No Point In A Course About Freelance Book Reviewing These Days

Columbia English professor James Shapiro’s undergraduate seminar, “The Book Review,” which teaches skills necessary for students to make it as freelance literary critics, is on indefinite hiatus. Shapiro wrote in an email, when the Transom asked if a rumor that he’d discontinued the class was true. “But what’s no longer there is the possibility of training a generation of book reviewers, since, as you know, newspapers around the country are shedding their book reviews, or shrinking these sections.” He added that because so many reviewers are now blogging, freelancers are having a harder time than ever earning anything substantial from their work. “It’s depressing—in large part because I see a lot of talent pass through my classrooms, and little opportunity for those talented students to have the opportunity early on … to review and get paid for it.” Read more at:
http://www.observer.com/2009/books/lil-lionel-trillings-will-have-fend-themselves

CourseSmart Emerges As A Key E-Textbook Provider

Beyond the money-saving feature for students, electronic textbooks offer another benefit: They can be more convenient for professors, who can easily review a new textbook online, then make a quick decision to include it in a course. The digital texts are offered through CourseSmart, an electronic textbook company. It now offers more than 7,000 titles across many disciplines. As an example, St. Dennis said that a textbook by Scott Ober called Contemporary Business Education, which he uses in one of his courses, is $139 in the St. Mary's University bookstore, or $65 from CourseSmart. Read more at:
http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2009/09/30/Embracing-Electronic-Textbooks.aspx?Page=2

This Dorm Put Its Books Behind Bars

The students who have long cherished the small library inside Dunster House, Harvard’s oldest dormitory, discovered a new feature there this week: two brass bars stretching across nearly every shelf, making the books impossible to peruse. The unannounced change - in effect making the library into a kind of museum of hardbacks - astonished those who revere the musty collection and have become accustomed to indulging in its broad span of history, fiction, and other genres. Dunster officials have since apologized to concerned students and have explained that the bars were needed as a temporary way to protect the books - some of them highly valuable volumes or irreplaceable first editions signed by authors - after it appeared that several works had been stolen. Read more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/09/30/bars_on_books_jar_harvard_students/

Students At One Beta Site Not Impressed With Kindles As E-Textbooks

When Princeton University announced its Kindle e-reader pilot program last May, administrators seemed cautiously optimistic that the e-readers would both be sustainable and serve as a valuable academic tool. But less than two weeks after 50 students received the free Kindle DX e-readers, many of them said they were dissatisfied and uncomfortable with the devices. But though they acknowledged some benefits of the new technology, many students and faculty in the three courses said they found the Kindles disappointing and difficult to use. “I hate to sound like a Luddite, but this technology is a poor excuse of an academic tool,” said Aaron Horvath ’10, a student in Civil Society and Public Policy. “It’s clunky, slow and a real pain to operate.” Read more at:
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/09/28/23918/

University Press Will Offer Free Online Textbooks

The University Press of Florida — located behind Chipotle on West University Avenue — has teamed up with a digital book provider to offer free online textbooks and reduced price print copie­s. The plan is to eventually provide free online textbooks for every general education class taught at any of Florida's 11 state universities, said Meredith Babb, director of the press.

All they can do is offer the free books, Babb said. Professors can decide to adopt them or not. Read more at:
http://www.alligator.org/articles/2009/09/24/news/campus/090924_books.txt

Options For Avoiding A Textbook Purchase

As students return to college campuses, one of the biggest price shocks they face will be at the bookstore. Dozens of science, engineering, and business textbooks now list for more than $300 apiece. Students, professors, college officials, and entrepreneurs are fighting back against these rising textbook prices and are developing new ways to distribute textbooks free of charge without requiring students to violate copyright laws or download big files illegally from BitTorrent sites. Even students whose professors continue to assign the big, expensive, traditional textbooks can still cut out several hundred dollars from the typical $700-to-$1,000-a-year bookstore bill by using new textbook rental services, reading books online, or just following tried-and-true techniques such as borrowing textbooks from libraries. Experienced penny-pinching students and consumer advocates say that new technology is making it easier to reduce—or even eliminate—textbook bills, but they warn that there are also some downsides to the lower-cost options. Read more at:
http://www.usnews.com/education/paying-for-college/articles/2009/09/02/4-ways-to-get-college-textbooks-free.html

There's No App For Real Textbook Reading

In our digital age, miniaturization rules. This is a welcome thing — in most cases. Squeezing two billion transistors onto a small chip? All good. Squeezing an enormous printed textbook down to iPhone-size? Not so good. Yes, the textbook can be digitized and displayed on gadgets that students can carry everywhere. But the iPhone version is painfully limited in its usefulness. An app that makes the double-page spread in a printed textbook easily readable on the iPhone? There’s no app for that. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/business/06digi.html?_r=1&th&emc=th