The Kindle and the future of newspapers and textbooks

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by PhiSigmaRho

E-books will become the norm once they are used in elementary and high school - probably less than a decade.

Call me the luddite, but I think it will be a lot longer than a decade before schools are replacing books with e-books. So many schools don't have enough computers now. I just don't see schools having the money to make that kind of switch, or being willing to put what money they do have into that kind of switch, for a lot longer than 10 years.

[Kevin]

Here's a link to a new color e-reader being offered for just over $1,000 in Asia. Despite it being obviously better than books and prospectively allowing public school students to be able to manipulate the way their pages look (i.e., highlighting and taking notes on the page), allowing content providers the ability to update things in real time, etc., I still see some major issues.

First, there's the middle man. Your bookstore and the hundreds of book wholesalers would be cut out. Bad news for them, good news for the publisher. Trouble is, this transition would be something gradual, so the wholesalers aren't going away overnight. They'll die a long, painful, loud death where they'll be doing everything they can to keep the print medium alive and/or put themselves into a position to try and wholesale e-content.

Publishers will suffer because with the ability to do live updates, they're going to have a tough time year to year in justifying new versions as all they'd normally have to do would be to send through a patch.

DRM will also be a huge issue. Invariably, someone's going to break the code and figure out a way to pirate this stuff. Further, schools won't transition to this technology unless they can realize some cost savings. Most primary/secondary school districts use their textbooks for several years, passing them from kid to kid. The DRM technology will have to figure out a way to distinguish between that practice and piracy. It'll have to figure out some headache-free way of passing the e-content from kid to kid without cost and without hassle, but still manage to protect the publisher's IP. That'll be a tough balance to strike. Further, I know some more wealthy school districts actually sell their old texts to poorer school districts. No one wants to see that mutually beneficial practice stop, so these rights will probably need to be transferrable to third parties outside of the school district. Again, a method needs to be devised to make that practice manageable.

For higher ed, I think these things are absolutely ideal for everyone but the wholesalers. Publishers get to sell new text to every single student which means (I'm assuming here), they could charge less money per text and achieve similar or better profits because the used market could (via DRM) be completely done away with. I would have loved to have one of these things in law school. Despite what some say about their old case books, I have been known to go back and look at mine. Color and manipulability is key.

For the legal profession, I think it'll be a cold day in Hell before Thomson-West makes their content available to e-readers. I don't think I've ever before encountered a company so desperate to preserve their DRM... but how cool would it be to be able to buy a set of the US Code Annotated [or some sort of expensive and extensive text you often need to refer to in your practice] (with all of your own highlights and annotations) to carry around with you in your briefcase?

[PhiSigmaRho]

Ok, maybe 2 decades. Also, it will probably continue to be the situation of the haves and the have nots. I can easily see more well-off schools going more high tech. When I was in college, only a few students in the dorms were fortunate to have their own computers -- the rest of us had to go to the computer labs.

Fast forward 15+ years later, even all the elementary school kids on my street have their own computers. I cannot believe how many middle school kids have cell phones and know how to text without even looking at the phone. These young kids are electronic savy and are growing up looking at electronic screens.

[PhoenixAzul]

Ugh, my version of hell. My comprehension definitely decreases when I read electronic forms. During my dissertation research, I printed out all of my articles (and there were a LOT b/c my topic was covered in academic journals by not so much in books). I needed to be able to make notes in the margins, highlight, and cross reference. It was nice to have electronic resources to *find* them, but reading them is a different matter.

Plus there's something comforting about a book.

[agzg]

I can't see elementary and secondary schools switching to electronic format in the foreseeable future unless kindles become inexpensive (cheaper than the cost of one textbook) and indestructible.

My dad worked on a grant for the last two years that he was an elementary school principal. It was a "reading first" grant which provided the school with teaching support, technology, and training programs for teachers to assist them in learning new ways to teach reading. They got the grant and got probably 30% of the materials they would need for the program in the first year. The year after my dad retired, the grant budget was cut and they were cut out completely. Even if schools were able to get grants to provide kindles (as they are) to their students, the likelihood that the grant money would hold out long enough to support the program is slim to none.

College students are different because they are more likely to shoulder the costs (and see the benefits to switching to electronic format) and benefit the most from switching. Plus, if the student shoulders the costs, they're more likely to take care of the equipment or at least pay for it to be replaced if it's broken or lost. Elementary and high school students will probably not have that responsibility.

[sjsoffer]

Bumping to say that I just had to buy a book on Kindle for my Directed Readings class. It's not that the book wasn't available...it's that my brand new (as in, never read, been on the shelf awhile) book literally FELL APART as I read the first chapter. I tried taping every page, but it didn't help. Ugh. Now I get to find out about notes and highlighting on the kindle! Woo.

[Kevin]

CK, no offense, but you have to be the lamest, most not-funny sockpuppet ever to post here.

[Troll Buster]

Originally Posted by Copy Kid

Hey dude, I noticed your letters and signature and have to tell you that we have a guy here from your fraternity that has been with the company for more that 20 years! Does that really say "Excellence with Honor"?? I mean come on, still making copies 30 years after graduating from college. He trained me on the job and that was 19 years ago now. The only thing he does well is give the occasional spanking to customers who can't pay for their copies! Guess that is why he is still here. And he uses the fraternity paddle to do it!!!

[DaemonSeid]

Kevin...where was the link to the color device?

[KatieKate1244]

I was working at Amazon.com when they brought the Kindle out. It's a neat little device. For leisure reading, I think it's great, but I don't think it'll be good for educational purposes. As a few have already mentioned, you can't write notes in the margins, highlight, etc, in. Also, you can only have one book open at a time. If you're trying to write a paper or study, you can only refer to one book at a time, which would have driven me crazy. I'm currently ghostwriting a book, and since I'm also having to translate parts of it from notes written in Russian, not to mention using other books as references, only being able to view one document at a time would add significant amounts of time to my task.

I think the initial cost may keep a lot of people from getting a Kindle or similar. I also figure most people will use it in conjunction with books.

[Still BLUTANG]

i'm debating getting a kindle as a family gift. we're big readers (and i am a librarian) and my dad usually has 3-5 books near him at all time. having an e-reader will be good for its basic intended use, however by no means will it be a replacement for the book-learnin' going on in my house or my parents'. I am excited about the adjustable text (esp. for pops) anda whispernet/internet.

i'm not sure if i would get a lot of use out of it if i needed it for classes. i have a tablet pc (handwriting to type recognizable, all that jazz) that i am JUST getting the hang of, after 2 years. my learning curve sucks so i think the kindle will just be our new toy, not really a tool.

[DaemonSeid]

Kindle is not ready for school.

Amazon's Kindle DX is a lean and elegant eBook reader that may someday replace textbooks--or so they say. But is the device up to the task? According to a Princeton University study, the Kindle DX suffers from poor annotation tools and slow performance. And while future generations of Kindles (and/or other e-readers) may very well dispatch back-breaking textbooks to the trash heap of higher learning, they're not quite there yet.

The Daily Princetonian reports that the university's Kindle e-reader pilot program, which began last May, provided 50 students with free Kindle DXs. But after only two weeks, many recipients "were dissatisfied and uncomfortable with the devices," the college newspaper writes.

Amazon provided the e-readers for three courses. The pros and cons were: Â

Kindle pros:

•· A single lightweight device, better than lugging bulky, heavy textbooks

•· The Kindle display is easy to read

•· It conserves paper

Kindle cons:

•· Annotating pages is difficult

•· Citing courses is a challenge because Kindle reformats pages and uses "location numbers" rather than page numbers

•· The Kindle DX is slow

[nikki1920]

I need to be able to highlight and mark up my book. Sorry. I like flipping the pages and fussing with the dust jacket.
<--- is a book snob. I dont even really like audio books.

[AnotherKD]

I got a kindle for last Christmas from my parents, and I already have 5 pages' worth of books on there. I read so much. The great thing about it is, for those of you who haven't seen it up close, is that it really looks like a paperback page. I thought it'd be somewhat like a computer screen, but nope. You can't even really smudge the screen with fingerprints. I wish it would have some sort of light feature for when I'm reading before bed so I wouldn't have to have the room light on, though.

I do pick up an actual book and read it sometimes. I understand the feeling of wanting to turn actual pages. But to me, this Kindle is fantastic, especially when I go to buy a new release and only spend $9.99 (or less- in fact, a new book I bought last night was free for some reason!) instead of $27.99 or whatever they cost.

[dreamseeker]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

I have absolutely no interest in Kindles or any other e-books. I just simply couldn't give up real books. I'll read a newspaper or magazine online (although I'd rather have the real thing in my hands) and I'll do legal research online, but e-books? It just ain't gonna happen with me unless they stop publishing real books altogether.

This = me:

i love this! lol