--- Sanford Forte <siforte(a)ix.netcom.com> wrote:
Thanks for posting this Karl.
It's been a little-known fact that overseas MSRP for
American-produced
university textbooks are far lower. The article is
simply one more example
of the gravy train that textbook publishers have
been on for the last four
decades, since the baby boomers started their formal
years of schooling.
Every few years commercial textbook publishers
obsolete their university
textbooks with "new editions". These "new edition"
updates are often little
more than minor updates that compel students to buy
new textbooks, in order
to kill the used book market. I heard that college
textbook publishers have
a "lease" arrangement with at least one state (I
think it might be Texas).
In this state, university books are leased. When
they reach the end of their
life cycle they are trucked off to landfills (dozens
of truckloads) to keep
them from the used book market. This is wasteful in
the extreme, shameful
(in terms of environmental impact), and yet another
example of a content
sector that's unable to creatively leverage IP.
Some years ago, while employed with one of the
companies mentioned in the
NYT article, I discovered quite by accident that a
very popular mathematics
textbook selling for roughly $80.00 in America could
be had as a paperback
edition in India for just over $6.00. I was taken
back by that; in fact,
it's what started me thinking about how distributed,
open content
environments could easily replace the inefficient
textbook creation system
that was in place at the time (about 1995).
Let's make this textbook project happen, and save
the world's K-12 and
university students billions in the process, while
providing content that is
second to none in quality, and variety.
Sanford
I think I'm a bit unclear about Wikibooks' goals. Are
we going to eventually send this to a publisher, or
will this always be online? If we do send it to a
publisher, how will that all work? Will we
self-publish? How will distribution work? Will we just
let someone else print Wikibooks?
LDan
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