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In a report reproduced in the Tampa Tribune, Florida, Associated Press
education writer Justin Pope writes that soaring text book prices may be
about to be offset on a large scale by including paid advertising.
A small company in St Paul, Minnesota, Freeload Press (yes, that's really
its name), is offering more than 100 titles this northern autumn,
financed by advertisements and free to students. The number is
expected to grow to 250,000 next year. Pope believes this will come
to be followed by major inroads into the $6 billion US text publishing
industry although major publishers currently do not take paid
advertising. The article gives a brief history of previous attempts
to introduce advertising, and the (generally unenthusiastic) reception by
academic staff, and notes that excessive costs of textbooks are driving
the change.<br><br>
The article mentions publishers' habit of makiing minor tweaking changes
in order to bring out frequent new editions and render old editions
useless. I have some comments of my own on this racket. It can be
combatted by these measures
<ul>
<li>If it is a large course ("unit"), insist on a guarantee of
supply of the currently-offered edition for at least three and preferably
five years as a condition for prescribing the text. Sellers don't
like it, but it can be insisted on in market in which several competing
and not significantly better or worse texts are also being touted.
Such an arrangement, of course, must be reciprocal and it also must take
account of diminishing requirements for new books as the second-hand
market kicks in.
<li>Ensure that study guides giving detailed text references are written
in such a way that reasonably recent earlier editions can be used as an
alternative to current editions. This allows students to re-sell
their texts at the end of the semester and does not detract from the
educational aims as succeeding texts are rarely any better than their
immediate predecessors. In this regard, take advantage of
reproduction latitude allowed in copyright law.
</ul>Justin Pope's article can be found at
<a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TEXTBOOKS_ADVERTISING?SITE=FLTAM&%20SECTION=US" eudora="autourl">
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TEXTBOOKS_ADVERTISING?SITE=FLTAM&%20SECTION=US</a>
<br><br>
Dion Giles<br>
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