Re:Open Textbook Initiative
by chrisseaton on Wednesday February 09, 2022 @07:59AM
(#30272088)
What I don't get is - do US universities not have libraries where you can borrow these text books?
They will generally have one on reserve that you can only check out for something like 4 hours or something.
My college has used the government covid money to pay for all students' textbooks and we hope to be able to include textbooks in tuition price from now on but they are ebooks only.
Thats fucked. I only bought two text books (30eur and 40eur) for the entire time I was in collage. All else I loaned from the school library for free.
Re:Open Textbook Initiative
by malauxyeux on Wednesday February 09, 2022 @08:21AM
(#30272283)
They might have one or several copies, though maybe not the right edition and never enough for an entire cohort of students.
At my university, students who didn't buy the book would simply make photocopies from the library's copy or from a friend's. But then the photocopiers were modified so that they only operated using credits from "copy card" that was tied to the student ID.
I never knew anyone who got into trouble, but heard that you'd be called in if you were making "too many" copies.
edit: an extra word
Re:Open Textbook Initiative
by chrisseaton on Wednesday February 09, 2022 @08:23AM
(#30272301)
It's weird because they know how many students they have, they know the text books needed before the course starts, they have a library, seems like the library should provide them.
Re:Open Textbook Initiative
by BeFlatXIII on Wednesday February 09, 2022 @09:42AM
(#30273139)
Can students no longer pool their money for a loose-leaf edition and then take it down a local sketchy copy center?
Even better, download a PDF on Libgen, print it out on the school library printer or pool your money for a laser printer, and bring it down to a local coffee center for a cheap plastic binder.
Even even better, don't print it and just read it on screen or get a supernote and put all of your books on there where you can mark them up and have them all with you all of the time.
Re:Open Textbook Initiative
by BeFlatXIII on Thursday February 10, 2022 @10:46AM
(#30287802)
eBooks just don't hit the same as their dead tree counterparts. Unless you can live-type LaTeX annotations, I need the paper for highlighting and scribbles.
You can highlight and scribble with a supernote
I can also sit on the beach in VR, but I'd still rather go in person.
We're going to the beach? I thought we were talking about reading books.
Bad news: they are pushing hard for ebooks that are drm'ed to hell so you can't resell them. And if they do still have paper books, increasingly they are moving to "loose leaf" editions which are "cheaper" because they are just loose pages which means they are much more likely get damaged so you can't resell those either. Or if they do offer actual books, they do "rentals" which means you pay most of the price but have to return them and so you have zero chance of being able to resell them.
But that's ok, I'm sure your local bookstore can help you. Oh wait, most college bookstores are now owned by Barnes and Noble and so they are just another corporate business...