And while John Updike has written that nothing can ever replace the aesthetic pleasure of holding a bound paper novel, it's hard to imagine students feeling the same way about a backpack overloaded with school books. This week, WizeUp Digital Textbooks announced that more than 75 titles would be available for this fall, with Harvard, Georgetown and Ohio State among the schools using the books. There was some skepticism two years ago, but now teachers are saying, 'Finally. But the desire for e-textbooks is apparently even stronger than the industry's ability to produce them. Pinker and other professors say they would be offering the electronic version now if only the books were ready.
Flexibility is the quality professors mention most.
While the traditional college textbook is updated once every few years, e-books can be updated every year, or even during the semester. The electronic format also allows for links to newspaper articles and other supplementary texts and for audio and visual aids. You click the screen and get a five-minute talk from the president of the Ford Motor Company or read an article about the latest on the Microsoft case. They make the professor more a guide than a pontificator, which professors should never be anyway. They're going to put an awful lot of responsibility on the students.