I had a chat with my publisher today, and he raised the issue of offering textbooks on Kindle. There are myriad pros and cons, but I thought I might send a post to see what others think of the idea. Would you permit your work to be offered on Kindle? Should textbooks be available for students to purchase in this format?
Posted by Kelly Anders on May 20, 2009 at 12:01 PM
Comments
Another student saying yes please… although the exam issue is well taken. One good alternative, that might make everyone happy, is to include a Kindle-compatible PDF copy… or an AZW for DRM (digital rights management) reasons (see below), with the purchase of the textbook itself. That way, students have a hard-copy for exams and maybe some highlighting, but if they don’t want to lug it around, be it to and from school or a weekend trip home, they can just read on their Kindle. I think the book + digital copy is the best way to go.
DRM issue with PDFs: The potential for students to make unauthorized digital copies might have a profound impact on the textbook publishing industry, but Amazon has the capability to come up with an un-borrowable, slightly modified file format, to address that concern.
A lot of pundits have, baselessly in my opinion, forecasted that the Kindle, if it makes headway into the general textbook market at all, will not make it into the legal realm for a variety of reasons. I could not disagree more. It may be hard to hear, it may make us a little sad, but books are reaching obsolescence very rapidly, much like the CD, or legal research. When do you think the last time was that one of your students pulled a case from a book? It’s just a matter of time, and by the look of things, not much.
Posted by: Stephen | Jul 30, 2009 6:07:11 PM
As a disabled student, I have to jump in here. Having my nursing textbooks on Kindle – one of which just weighed in on my (admittedly unscientific) bathroom scale at 8 lbs – would literally be a potentially life-changing opportunity for me. Right now, I commute over an hour to classes, incorporating a drive to the train, a subway to campus, and a two block walk to my building. My back injury makes this challenging even when only my laptop and notebook are in my bag, adding any of my textbooks makes this an excruciating proposition. Having my textbooks in electronic format on a device which weighs next to nothing seems like a dream.
Posted by: Jennifer | Jun 10, 2009 6:23:37 PM
The Kindle doesn’t have page numbers, but DOES specify locations within a document or book.
You can navigate to specific locations (Menu | Go to Location) , so it would be a little different than page numbers but just as fast to call out a location for the professor and even faster for the students to jump right to the exact spot.
Also, with text searching, the professor could give the search criteria and then point to the various hits to jump around a lot faster than page turning.
As for money, professors could publish to PDF without a publisher and then receive payments directly from students, although an online vendor might be easier.
Posted by: Gib Wallis | May 22, 2009 6:37:48 PM
God, yes. From a student’s perspective, it would be incredibly sweet to have casebooks on Kindle.
Posted by: Tom | May 21, 2009 11:11:58 PM
I’d consider it… but not on the terms being offered either by Amazon directly or by publishers. The offered terms are inappropriate and reflect the sincere hope that nobody with standing can spell “antitrust,” or “unfair competition,” or “contract of adhesion,” or…
Posted by: C.E. Petit | May 21, 2009 12:31:42 PM
Yes, please! As a student, for certain casebooks this would have been WONDERFUL. For others, quite frankly, I might prefer the book–but having the option to choose for myself would have been nice, instead of being forced to lug around giant books all the time.
I encourage everyone working with publishers to allow electronic formats. Let the customer decide whether it works for them or not in a particular situation, but make the option available. Another benefit: it would also make it much easier for blind students (like at least one of my classmates) to use, instead of forcing them to jump through hoops to get accommodations.
And I echo the sentiment to encourage all kind of electronic formats, if possible.
Posted by: Kristopher Nelson | May 20, 2009 8:35:14 PM
Vladimir – A qualified yes: I think the textbook version will allow you to view regular PDFs – so at least for those you’d have stable pagination. Not sure whether the .azw format that kindle store books are in allows for fixed pagination on the new kindle.
Posted by: Christian Turner | May 20, 2009 2:26:24 PM
One worry with the Kindle is that it doesn’t have page numbers. So if you said, “Notice Justice X’s language on page 543,” students with Kindles would be unable to find the spot you’re talking about. At least that’s the case on the regular Kindle. Is it different on the textbook version?
Posted by: Vladimir | May 20, 2009 2:18:19 PM
I would be happy to have my work on Kindle (although it’s hypothetical at this point, since I haven’t written any casebooks), but the problem I see with textbooks on Kindle is for open-book exams. I want my students to be able to use their textbooks for exams, but not to be able to use online materials, which the Kindle and its wifi capability would provide. So if having the text on Kindle would prevent them from bringing the textbook into the exam, it would be a major drawback.
Posted by: Betsy Rosenblatt | May 20, 2009 2:06:22 PM
Yes and yes. But more generally, I’d like to see textbooks offered as PDFs and as web pages that can be viewed anywhere. This is an opportunity for a shameless plug for a project of mine that I care a lot about: hydratext – It provides a commons of course materials that we profs can assemble into personalized textbooks or supplements like creating playlists in iTunes. I’d love to see more people get involved, as the more people who use it, the more useful it is. You can check it out at http://hydratext.org from which you can request an account or find links to text and movies that detail what it’s all about. I’ve used it this past year for property supplements and will be using it to make the exclusive readings for next year’s classes.
For those of you who are writing or have written casebooks, a project like hydratext could offer many advantages. Just because your content is “in the commons” doesn’t mean it has to be free if you don’t want it to be. Wouldn’t it be great if I could offer my students a book that used a chapter from casebook A and a chapter from casebook B – along with a few extra cases and articles I like to teach – and have it all come out in a textbook-looking pdf (that they could read without skipping around) and webpage? That’s the kind of thing that’s possible right now. And it wouldn’t require you to put your own casebook in a publisher’s walled garden. Maybe you’d charge $15 for a chapter, or $50 to use any part of the casebook. I think with such an arrangement we’d get more and better contributions from more profs. It’s all about shrinking the size of the meaningful unit of contribution.
Posted by: Christian Turner | May 20, 2009 1:46:23 PM