Liquid Textbooks: Coursepacks in a Web 2.0 Digital World?

Symtext is a start-up company based in Toronto that is promoting Liquid Textbooks.

This is how they describe Liquid Textbooks to academics (excerpt from their site):

By comparison, Symtext enables you to teach better courses by assembling best of breed digital content from multiple publishers into dynamic, continuously evolving "Liquid Textbooks", thus ensuring the highest possible quality content for students. Unlike traditional materials, Liquid Textbooks include not only traditional content like chapters, cases and articles, but podcasts, videos, presentations - curated Flickr feeds - data files, and many other types of digital files. (We'll clear the rights and do the work to make sure your students gain access to your Liquid Textbook through your School's Learning Management System.)

Web 2.0 approaches to digital content, such as this effort, may eclipse the focus on static digital textbooks (i.e. digital versions of hardcopy textbooks) sooner rather than later.

Digital initiatives, whether applications or hardware, are emerging and evolving at a increasingly quicker pace. Where it is going to end up, nobody knows at this point. But we can't wait until the dust settles. Campus stores need to quicken efforts to adapt to the digital future, and a changing role within that future.

E-reader devices: The fun is just starting

This is an excellent update on what is happening with e-readers.

E-reader devices: The fun is just starting Between the Lines ZDNet.com

In particular, this was interesting:

The key element player in the market—and driving down the price will be China.
Consider the textbook tipping point:
The textbook tipping point won’t come
from Harvard, MIT,or even Stanford: We think it will come from developing
nations like China and India, whose universities will use technology
to leapfrog ahead of Western counterparts. China especially is already a
fast-growing market for eReaders like Jinke Electronics’ HanLin eBook,
which sells for US$299 and includes 600 free books. We expect the textbook
eReader market to start this year with modest sales of content
through the Kindle DX, with greater adoption starting in 2011 and reaching
more sizable numbers by 2013.

University of Saskatchewan Bookstore begins renovations

This is the first post of a series that will follow the renovations to the Bookstore at the University of Saskatchewan. As you can see in the above picture, these shelves have been emptied and will soon be moved out. The area shown here will be gutted and redesigned into a more modern and efficient retail space.

Renovations will take place now through till mid December. The plan is to renovate our main cash out area, some offices and retail space for clothing, art supplies and stationery from now till mid August. Work will then be put on hold till the end of September when we renovate the book selling floor and the rest of the offices. The Bookstore will remain open during the renovations.

Kindle DX poses profitability challenge to publishers

An article in Information Week Canada discusses how the Kindle DX could cause profitability problems for textbook publishers. Its interesting how these discussions parallel similar discussions about the music industry when the iPod was introduced. This article also touches on the "green" aspect of ebook reader devices. We have focused a lot of time talking about the competing business cases of digital vs. traditional publishing, but some universities may be looking at how not publishing paper textbooks will help the environment.

E-textbooks vs. Kindle DX: What will college kids pick?

A recent article in Crave, a blog from cnet magazine, discusses the benefits of laptops and netbooks over the Kindle DX. I think this adds credence to my statement in an earlier blog that Apple may be developing a device that is both a tablet PC (a laptop that recognizes handwriting and has a keyboard) and ebook reader. By and large, laptop use among university students has grown organically. There have been some high profile universities, such as The University of North Carolina, that have been successful in requiring their students to buy laptops; but, by and large, students have realized on their own the gains in productivity they could gain from having a laptop. I'm not saying that the Amazon Kindle DX will fail because some schools tell their students they need to use them, I'm saying that students will use the device that best suits their purpose.

How the iPod changed everything!

Globeandmail.com is becoming a very good source for information about the digital world. When you go to globeandmail.com, you'll notice a Technology tab towards the top of the page. There is a very interesting video documentary titled The Decade the Music Died. It is interesting because it features Sam the Record Man discussing what the downloading of music has done to his retail business. I think the two main lessons to be learned from this video are: (1) Don't stick your head in the sand and pretend the changes toward digital aren't happening; and, (2) Publishers will not necessarily partner with bookstores on digital books. Remember what's happened to Sam the Record Man!

Expresso Book Machine at Waterloo

The University of Waterloo is getting an Expresso Book Machine to join McMaster and University of Alberta (the first in a campus store).

Read about it at:
http://www.exchangemagazine.com/morningpost/2009/week19/Thursday/050714.htm