When I was picking up my books for my classes, it was a love/hate relationship.  I love getting the books because I was interested in the subjects.  I hated getting the books because of the expense.  A new dawn on books is starting to arrive – ebooks.  ebooks means that a publisher does not have to print as much – saving a tremendous amount of money.  Arizona State University is part of the pilot program with the Amazon Kindle.   

Only 400 of 14,000 book titles used in ASU classes also were available in electronic format from publishers in fall 2008.

eBooks can be a success – but more need to be published, more need to be used by teachers, they need to be able to stay with the student and not “rented” for a year so that students can keep them.  Textbooks are what are keeping programs in technology behind the times because everyone wants a textbook.  But if the textbooks are out of date, what can be done?  eBooks – it is easier to update eBooks then regular text books.  They can even be updated up to the time classes start.  The professors can help by using eBooks or demanding the publishers print eBook editions.  Have you got your eBooks?  Would you use them for your classes?  Are you demanding them for your students?

Mark Viquesney