If they are good enough
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| skelband Sep 16, 2011 4:09 PM EDT |
"... (not known yet, if they will be available abroad)" If the price is right, you can bet someone will make it available. |
| DiBosco Sep 20, 2011 8:52 AM EDT |
Tablets: a solution waiting for a problem. You can get an i3 laptop with a bigger screen and resolution for the same price - I just do not understamd the attraction of these toys. I supsect it's just that people have fallen under the Apple spell and believe they must be useful because Steve says so. |
| skelband Sep 20, 2011 10:50 AM EDT |
I agree, but toys have their place :D For media consumption on the go, they're not a bad form factor, but I agree that I don't actually find them useful for real work. |
| Fettoosh Sep 20, 2011 12:07 PM EDT |
Quoting: but I agree that I don't actually find them useful for real work. Tablets are good replacement for work-pads. eg. Doctors offices, Hospitals, factory floors, warehouses, pick up & delivery personal, etc... I believe this type of usage is going to explode. We already see commercials centered around tablets. Sorry, may be you don't watch TV. :-) |
| skelband Sep 20, 2011 12:24 PM EDT |
@Fettoosh: If only I had the time... Then again, the next season of "Being Erica" is starting on Monday, so it looks like I'm going to have to make time :D |
| BernardSwiss Sep 20, 2011 8:37 PM EDT |
Just yesterday during my commute, a university student was quite happy to show me how well his iPad worked as a replacement for carting a pack full of textbooks around. |
| skelband Sep 21, 2011 1:54 PM EDT |
@BernardSwiss: I worry about this actually. The book publishers are in a bit of a bind. Firstly, they want the cost savings and convenience of electronic distribution, but they don't know how to stop illicit copying. My main worry actually is about second hand books, however. The other reason that publishers like the DRM-laced electronic copies is that they can see it as a way to kill the second-hand book. Especially for less well-off students, second-hand textbooks are a staple that make it possible for these people to obtain them. Let's face it, even for the better well-off ones, text books are a pricey necessity. I can see why people like electronic books (although they are not for me), the publishers really need to sort out a legitimate way for electronic books to change ownership. |
| DiBosco Sep 21, 2011 2:17 PM EDT |
@skelband. I guess the flip side of this is that it might go the way of music with people freely copying and the book companies will long for the days of "analogue" books. I find it hard to believe DRM books won't be cracked eventually.(Agree with you about needing to be able to sell-on electronic books.) Record companies loved people buying all their vinyl again on CDs and now wring their hands about MP3s. Coudn't've happened to a nicer industry... |
| techiem2 Sep 21, 2011 5:29 PM EDT |
The other issue with DRM'd books is that some of the publishers like to put time limits on some of them (like textbooks). Yeah..I'm gonna spend $50 (or more) for a text book that expires 3 months after I open it. Uh......yeah....I don't think so... Some people buy text books for uses other than a class (self learning/reference/etc.) and expect to keep them for quite a while, as do many people that buy text books FOR a class. |
| mbaehrlxer Sep 22, 2011 10:23 AM EDT |
just an aside, i find being required to buy an expensive published textbook for a class a scam. they should be included in the class fee. yes that will make the class more expensive, but it will ensure fair competition because people will complain if the price of the class is to high. having the book as an extra cost hides it and is unfair to those who take the effort to make textbook material available for free or low cost. i remember we used to complain when a professor required us to buy an expensive textbook when others gave us photocopy material for free. we also used to have this system where we would get a discount on the book if we got a slip from the professor who wrote the book stating that we are in his class. that helped in some cases, but some books were still expensive even with the discount. so, no, i am not worried for the publishers. with the abilities we have to print books on demand there is no need for publishing textbooks with a traditional publisher. just hand out a pdf and allow everyone who wants it to get a printed copy for the price of reproduction. the argument for using publishers usually is quality control etc. but that only applies to books for the general public. class textbooks don't need that as the quality control comes from the school, students, parents etc anyways. the quality added to a textbook by a publisher is marginal at best. greetings, eMBee. |
| Fettoosh Sep 22, 2011 11:17 AM EDT |
Quoting:they should be included in the class fee. That is not fair to those who don't need a designated book to complete a class. The information can also be found in other books some where in libraries. Why should they pay for something they can get for free? Besides, a book contents should be available electronically and for free to access. It could be printed, if necessary or needed, by the student since the information is already paid for in one way or another (Prof. salary, grants, funded research, etc). It should be a mandated requirement by Us for every prof. to write a book in an appropriate period of time; and just like they are required to publish papers, attend conferences, and such. |
| mbaehrlxer Sep 22, 2011 12:23 PM EDT |
fettoosh: i was talking about the cases where the textbook is required. if it is optional, and there are alternatives available then that is a different matter. the cases where i had to buy a textbook, there was no free option. the library didn't have enough copies, and using other books was not an option. the only alternative would have been putting a friends book through the copymachine... greetings, eMBee. |
| tuxchick Sep 22, 2011 12:52 PM EDT |
Yeah, books should be free because they cost nothing to write. Authors just wake up in the morning, type a little bit, and presto! Book. Easy peasey, no work, no effort, no knowledge, no experience, no toil of any kind required. It's magic. Textbooks are often overpriced scams, especially when they require the most recent editions which are trivially different, a dodge to de-value used books. But get real folks. An author gets one chance to make some money, and that is on that first sale. Any technical or educational book represents years of training, experience, and knowledge. What sounds like the better deal, investing in all those years of training, experience, and knowledge yourself, or buying and studying a book? Professors often get some subsidies to write books, but they never cover all the costs. Fettoosh, I especially love your suggestion that people should be forced to write books, and that they should be funded by someone other than you so you can have them for free. Do please explain why this should be so. Seriously. Why? I want things for free, too, so you must give me whatever I want. For starters I need a big diesel pickup and a horse trailer. After that we'll talk about fencing and irrigation. |
| techiem2 Sep 22, 2011 1:23 PM EDT |
I personally wouldn't want the books included in the cost of the class.
Many people get used copies from friends who took the class the previous term, or get them used or new cheaper elsewhere (like Amazon etc.).
The only case I can see it making sense to have the required books included in the class fee are when those books are out of print and thus very difficult to find (yes, I had a class using an out of print book....). |
| Fettoosh Sep 22, 2011 1:42 PM EDT |
Quoting:I especially love your suggestion that people should be forced to write books, and that they should be funded by someone other than you so you can have them for free. First off, I believe we all are, or at least I am, talking about text books, books that are used in educational institutions for educational purposes, schools and universities that is. Second, I didn't say they should be forced, I said mandated, required as part of their duties as teaching professors, and being paid handsomely with lots of fringe benefits. So they are not being forced any more than being required to do research, write and publish papers. Most good professor prepare class material, which they keep improving and refining and eventually become the basis for their books. Professional writers are a different case and in different situation. They are entitled and free to charge whatever they see fit to compensate for their efforts. In this case, it is different since people have a choice and are not obligated to purchase any books. I hope this clarifies things. |
| skelband Sep 22, 2011 1:51 PM EDT |
@tuxchick: "Yeah, books should be free because they cost nothing to write." I don't think anyone was suggesting that books should be free. I also understand why text books are expensive to buy. They are expensive to produce (at least the really good ones) and they have a relatively small audience so do not have the benefit of cost scaling. However, I do worry that publishers are trying to turns book ownership into licensing and we see Amazon with their Kindle doing exactly that. Buying a book is an investment and I have bought many great books in the past (including from this place: http://www.packtpub.com in paper and electronically). When you have bought a book, you own it and should have the right to give it to someone else, or share it with someone (by using the same copy, not by duplication I mean). What Amazon are trying to do is make the purchase (which has a perpetual value) become non-existent when the original purchaser no longer requires it. That is wrong. We see something similar with Library digital editions which are now required to "expire" after a certain number of lendings. Like the music industry, the publishing industry is struggling to make business sense of the digital age. I don't have the answers but I do know that there is a real danger that publishers will try to swing it to their own benefit and that is not necessarily the benefit of the reader.... |
| techiem2 Sep 22, 2011 2:09 PM EDT |
@Skelband: Exactly. Like I mentioned, having the digital version of texbooks expire after 90 days or whatever. The publishers (and distributors) don't want you to BUY books, they want you to RENT books (for near the same cost as buying the physical copy). |
| gus3 Sep 22, 2011 5:19 PM EDT |
@tc: When it's the fifty-seventeenth edition of the textbook, and it's written by the same prof who's teaching the class, and the only difference between the current edition and the fifty-sixteenth edition is a few typos corrected, then that $280 is quite obviously nothing but yet another cash cow for the campus bookstore and more royalties for the professor (who's going to delegate the actual class time to a graduate student anyway). |
| techiem2 Sep 22, 2011 6:19 PM EDT |
@gus3 Sadly that seems to apply to most textbooks these days, not just prof-written ones. |
| BernardSwiss Sep 22, 2011 7:20 PM EDT |
My understanding is that professors who write textbooks get relatively little for them -- and often, a "standard" textbook is actually a joint effort. At least as far as sciences are concerned. I have heard professors argue about whether it's worth the trouble as the work generally gains relatively little prestige and requires a high price in time expended, which could be better spent in getting published (ie. papers that "count", in actual journals). Many felt that working on textbooks was more often than not a strategy for those who didn't have what it takes to do real, publishable research. Those in favor of participation generally resorted to appeals to professional duty and the needs of the students for good, effective materials, or at least materials that conformed to local requirements and curriculum. Another problem is just how quickly material gets outdated, Already, early in my second year, one of my profs made his annual point about (not) relying on textbooks, by insisting that the entire class -- on the spot -- haul out their Invertebrate Biology textbooks, open to page so-and-so, take up a pen, and physically cross out two or three particular paragraphs, on the grounds that a recent paper by A, supported by confirmatory work by B,C,D et al, hade made clear that nematocysts did not in fact function in the manner described, as had previously been believed. Oh yeah -- most of those profs were also quite disgusted by the absurdly high prices of textbooks, believed it was blatant abuse and exploitation of a captive market by the publishing industry, and wondered how the cost could be kept under some degree of control. |
| Fettoosh Sep 22, 2011 8:21 PM EDT |
It has been a while but, I had couple professors who handed copies of their material at the beginning of a session and specifically instructed us not to script his lecture because everything is in there. They wanted us to make sure we listened to comprehend and ask questions. Their lectures were a lot more interesting and enjoyable than others. |
| mbaehrlxer Sep 23, 2011 3:59 AM EDT |
a note on photocopying a book:
when i studied, the cost of a photocopy was expensive enough that it almost reached the price of the book new, not to mention that you'd have to flip pages manually and copy one page at a time, so given the expense and work it wasn't worth the trouble. greetings, eMBee. |
| cr Sep 23, 2011 4:51 AM EDT |
Quoting: When it's the fifty-seventeenth edition of the textbook, and it's written by the same prof who's teaching the class, and the only difference between the current edition and the fifty-sixteenth edition is a few typos corrected, then that $280 is quite obviously nothing but yet another cash cow for the campus bookstore and more royalties for the professor And cracked e-texts can be updated far easier than paper texts. "Cliff's Diffs", anyone? |
| patrokov Sep 24, 2011 10:20 PM EDT |
The general rule of thumb (in health sciences) is that Journals are about a year behind the latest research, and textbooks are about five years behind the latest research. I wrote a textbook chapter (more work than my dissertation) and received the princely sum of $400. In that particular subject in my discipline, I found that most of the other textbooks were 30 years behind the latest research. The main reason for frequent updating of versions is to prevent book buybacks and used books. |
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