Comments on: The economics of text books

By: Mailund on the Internet » Blog Archive » This week in the blogs … well, last week

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 08:47:06 +0000

[...] The economics of textbooks (Me!) [...]

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 04:44:02 +0000

Here it is, http://www.keionline.org/blogs/2008/12/29/minnesota-textbook-costs/

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 04:41:10 +0000

I read of a prof( I can’t find the link), who chose a few suitable textbooks, and then put out a tender to the publishing companies, the cheapest one was chosen for the class.

By: Thomas Mailund

Thomas Mailund — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:08:30 +0000

I personally like text books for many courses — but of course my classes are usually somewhat math-y, so that doesn’t really conflict with what you say, Jonathan.

On the other hand, for programming classes I prefer my own notes or links to tutorials here and there.

When there is a textbook, however, I think it is very important that the teaching is not just lecturing from the book, but actually contributes something that goes beyond it. The material in the book, after all, can just be read.

That is a completely different topic, though, so I won’t rant more about that for now :)

By: Jonathan Badger

Jonathan Badger — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:06:01 +0000

I have to admit I’ve always questioned the reason for textbooks at all. My first couple of undergrad years I dutifully bought all the textbooks that the professors assigned, but I realized later on (with the exception of some classes like math, where problem sets were assigned from the textbooks) that textbooks are not in general very useful. Rarely do courses in say, biochemistry or microbiology, follow the textbook. Nor do I find any the aging textbooks that I still have to be useful references given more convenient and current sources of info available in the digital era.

I haven’t taught a course since my days as a TA, but if I ever do, I’ll certainly make my lecture notes available to the students as the better professors from my education generally did; undergrads have better things to spend their money on than text books.

By: 7dollarbook.info » Mailund on the Internet » Blog Archive » The economics of text books

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:58:20 +0000

[...] Originally posted here: Mailund on the Internet » Blog Archive » The economics of text books [...]

By: Rasmus

Rasmus — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:46:33 +0000

Competition probably plays a part as well. There are dozens of “General Biology”-textbooks, and the people who pick them out do care about the price. On the other hand, there can’t be that many alternatives to “Category Theory”.

By: Thomas Widmann

Thomas Widmann — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:48:59 +0000

For print-on-demand prices, see for instance Lulu.