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From: johnm@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (John Murray)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Re: How to beat the high cost of text books!
Summary: Books on-line!
Message-ID: 
Date: 7 Dec 88 23:40:50 GMT
References: <2219@cbnews.ATT.COM> <684@stech.UUCP> <547@aoa.UUCP> <19290@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 42

How about this scheme:

The publisher has the source of the book available on-line. The bookstore/
university/professor/library/student orders the book by electronic mail,
charging it to their account number/tuition bill/credit card or whatever.
The publisher sends out the textfile and it is printed/reproduced locally,
or alternately simply used online. (I'm not going to discuss the problems
of copy protection, etc. We know all about them from software experience.)
The advantage is that the source can be revised each year, so that people
always have to get the latest version.

It seems like the system would work best if most or all the texts for a
given subject were distributed in this manner. (New topics with relatively
few general texts, such as nanotechnology or cognitive engineering, seem
to be potential candidates for such a system.) Thus, if you intended to
be involved with the subject, it would be assumed that you were registered
with the system (much as you would with Compuserve or Lexis). The authors
also benefit, by doing their submissions and reviewing on-line too. It may
be that the publisher would prefer to deal directly at the bookstore level
(or perhaps professor/department level), rather than the general public.

So why hasn't some enterprising publisher established a system along these
lines? Many are into software distribution and on-line services in a big
way in any case, and the text of many books is in machine form somewhere
already. Someday, professors might tell sales reps they won't recommend a
text unless it's available on-line. On the other hand, people weren't
banging on the doors of banks and lotteries for on-line access, but it
happened anyway.

Recently, there was some discussion about the "value of information" here.
It comes to mind that the "value" in legal text systems (like Lexis) is
not in the contents; court decisions and the ramblings of judges are in
the public domain. However, the publishers make their profits out of
their copyrights on the indexes and tables of contents. Given the opinion
of some posters, who feel that students should be encouraged to learn more
than just how to apply a memorized formula, we might think how traditional
textbooks might be transformed into a realistic "knowledge base", perhaps
using some form of local hypertext system.

Any opinions?

- John M. (My own opinions, etc.)