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Why the Textbook Market is Dying, Part Googol

1260955613_988e936140_oWith textbook prices rising faster than inflation, more and more universities (and even state-wide university systems) are adopting free and open-source textbooks. And now the idea has taken hold in Canada.

Earlier this month the province of Manitoba announced its new Open Textbook Initiative, a program to provide freely licensed OER textbooks to college students.

OER (open educational resource) textbooks are licensed under CC and open copyright licenses and made available online for students, teachers and members of the public. Through this new initiative, faculty members at colleges and universities in Manitoba will be able to offer content in the highest-enrolled academic subject areas.

"Textbooks are one of the biggest costs faced by post-secondary students,” said Education and Advanced Learning Minister James Allum. "While we work hard to keep tuition fees among the lowest in Canada, this new initiative will save students money by giving them free online access to the reading material they need to achieve academically."

The initiative is delivered by Campus Manitoba, and currently uses works developed for the open textbook project that British Columbia started in 2013.

The textbooks can be found on the BCcampus website. Around 80 titles are available now, and the catalog is expected to expand by another 50 volumes this fall (to late for the fall semester, but still in time for next spring).

While this doesn’t mark the death of the college textbook market, it is one more nail in the coffin. This market is dying off, which leaves the lucrative K-12 textbook market. That market is focused on district- and state-wide purchases rather than student purchases, so it is more resistant to price pressures, but I still expect that market to follow the same path.

As districts realize that they can save huge sums by using OER textbooks they will switch over in droves.  Funds are tight everywhere, and the idea that a district can save money on textbooks and use those funds to buy equipment will prove too tempting to ignore.

image by spakattacks

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Comments


Reader September 22, 2015 um 1:34 pm

With textbook prices rising faster than inflation..
As has been said many times: what cannot continue indefinitely, will not.
The book publishers got greedy, and will pay for it. There is no need to have a different edition of a Calculus or Physics textbook every three years, especially when you consider that the basis for those subjects came from Isaac Newton’s work over 300 years ago.


All About Ebook Production and Cover Images | Digital Book World September 23, 2015 um 8:04 am

[…] Why the Textbook Market Is Dying (Digital Reader) With textbook prices rising faster than inflation, more and more universities (and even state-wide university systems) are adopting free and open-source textbooks. And now the idea has taken hold in Canada. Earlier this month the province of Manitoba announced its new Open Textbook Initiative, a program to provide freely licensed OER textbooks to college students. […]


DavidW September 23, 2015 um 8:31 am

The textbook is not dying. Most students are still buying and using textbooks. What will change in the future (and perhaps not even near future but several years down the line) is that publishers will drop prices to match for lowered demand. This has not happened yet because the students are forced into using an expensive textbook for the course, so the demand does not go down. Most instructors are still going to choose what they think is the best book for their course regardless of price.


All About Ebook Production and Cover Images | LTSS October 2, 2015 um 7:48 am

[…] Why the Textbook Market Is Dying (Digital Reader) With textbook prices rising faster than inflation, more and more universities (and even state-wide university systems) are adopting free and open-source textbooks. And now the idea has taken hold in Canada. Earlier this month the province of Manitoba announced its new Open Textbook Initiative, a program to provide freely licensed OER textbooks to college students. […]


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