Textbooks & Digital Textbooks Archives

Couple Accused of Stealing $10k in Textbooks from College Bookstore

30 May, 201930 May, 2019Bookstore, Textbooks & Digital TextbooksLeave a comment

A pair of thieves have been arrested on the charge of stealing $10,000 worth of textbooks from Fayetteville Technical Community College, which is located in North...

Pearson Sells Off Its K-12 US Textbook Division for $250 Million

18 February, 201918 February, 2019Textbooks & Digital Textbooks2 Comments

Pearson announced on Monday that they had agreed to sell its US K-12 textbook business to Nexus Capital Management for $250 million. Nexus will pay an initial...

Cengage Launches an e-Textbook Subscription Service

6 December, 20176 December, 2017Subscriptions, Textbooks & Digital TextbooksOne Comment

Thanks to textbook publishers pricing themselves out of the market, textbook sales have about a snowball’s chance in Animal Farm of surviving the digital transition. Cengage’s solution...

Barnes & Noble Hates Its Customers, and Wants Them to Suffer

13 September, 201726 September, 2017Barnes & Noble, e-Reading Software, Textbooks & Digital Textbooks10 Comments

Some retailers like Amazon try their best to make customers happy, secure in the knowledge that a happy customer is a repeat customer. Then there is...

Why Textbook Publishers Are Running Scared: Survey Shows College Textbook Spending Dropped 17% Since 2007

28 August, 201729 August, 2017Textbooks & Digital Textbooks9 Comments

When textbook publishers filed copyright infringement suits against third-party sellers (and Follett, even), the motivation was obvious. Just ask anyone: non-fiction sales are down (like O’Reilly...

Jisc Now Offers Digital Textbooks

7 August, 201715 August, 2017Digital Library, Textbooks & Digital Textbooks2 Comments

Digital library vendor Jisc has found a back door to shove institutional- or site-licensed digital textbooks through. Last week Jisc announced a partnership with Bibliotech, the...

No, Institutional Licensing is Not the Solution to Textbook Prices

18 July, 201727 July, 2017DeBunking, Textbooks & Digital Textbooks2 Comments

Textbook prices have been rising faster than healthcare for decades. this has inspired the growth in use of open educational resources and even degree programs that...

“Zero Textbook Cost” Degree Programs Are Rendering Paid Textbooks Obsolete

10 July, 201718 July, 2017Textbooks & Digital Textbooks11 Comments

When O’Reilly announced a couple weeks ago that they were closing their ebookstore, they explained that they were simply responding to the existing trend of declining...

Textbook Publishers Now Fight Piracy With Seals of Approval

7 June, 20177 June, 2017Piracy, Textbooks & Digital Textbooks2 Comments

Publishers have been raising textbook prices for so many decades and have driven the price of textbooks so high that they have created a profitable opportunity for...

Site Licenses, Er, Inclusive Access, Will Save Textbook Publishing

28 March, 201717 April, 2017DeBunking, Textbooks & Digital Textbooks3 Comments

If you wait long enough, any idea, no matter how old, will become new again. Joseph Esposito proved that point with what he calls “inclusive access”:...

Book Cycle Connects Students Buying and Selling Textbooks

27 March, 20174 April, 2017e-Reading Software, Textbooks & Digital TextbooksLeave a comment

When I was in college I usually bought my textbooks online on sites like half.com and then sold them back to the bookstore at the end...

Textbook Publishers File Suit Against Amazon Marketplace Sellers for Alleged Piracy

24 January, 201724 January, 2017Lawsuit, Piracy, Publishing, Textbooks & Digital Textbooks6 Comments

Cengage, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson have started a new round of lawsuits against textbook sellers. The Financial Times reports that this time around the publishers are targeting defendants...

Free and Open eBooks Won’t Help Those on the Wrong Side of the Digital Divide

27 March, 201612 May, 2017Education, Textbooks & Digital Textbooks10 Comments

The Washington Post reminded us on Friday that the recently announced federal Open eBooks program could fail to reach those who need it the most. While...

McGraw-Hill Pulps College Textbook Over Disputed Historical Maps of Israel

20 March, 201621 March, 2016Education, Textbooks & Digital Textbooks4 Comments

Following protests from activists, textbook publisher McGraw-Hill announced earlier this month that it was withdrawing and planned to destroy a political science textbook, Global Politics: Engaging a...

B&N Ed Retires Its Digital Textbook Platform, Replaces It With VitalSource

8 March, 201625 April, 2016Barnes & Noble, Education, Textbooks & Digital Textbooks9 Comments

Following two years of torturing students with a mostly non-functional platform, B&N Education announced on Tuesday that it was throwing in the towel. The company announced...