A hearing on the rising cost of textbooks may have opened a new chapter in educational resources and spelled the end for traditional textbooks.
The federal committee that oversees student financial aid heard public testimony Friday from organizations and individuals who are working to make textbooks more affordable. The last of three public hearings, all of which are going to be included in a year-long study on rising textbook prices, concluded at Portland State University.
Dave Rosenfeld, Campus Program Director for Student Public Interest Research Group, delivered a four-point process to combat rising textbook costs:
?Promote research
?Promote faculty outreach by helping faculty to know the prices of their textbooks.
?Promoting alternatives such as book swaps, rental programs and other auxiliary programs.
?Promoting legislation to solve the problem on both the congressional and state government level. Legislation would also investigate where the money from purchased textbooks goes.
Dr. Richard Baraniuk, professor at Rice University, promoted what he calls the “open access movement” to the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance on Friday. The concept, according to Baraniuk, is borrowed from cooperative Internet technology.
“Open access would put peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature on the Internet” making it free of charge, according to a report by Peter Suber, the Open Access Project director.
Cutting the cost of textbooks, may not be able to save it as a medium.
James Williams, general manager of the University Bookstore, compared textbooks with vinyl records and described how the evolution of buying a 45 to purchasing music on iTunes may be a similar model for the outdating of textbooks.
Wlliams is not the only one talking about the future of the textbook. More that 50 scientists, educators and technology professionals held a three-day conference in 2006 called “Reconsidering the Textbook.” Their report stated, “The textbook of the future will be more than a static printed volume. It will function as a guide, interweaving and coordinating a variety of different learning resources including animations, simulations and interactive exercises.”
While the cost of textbooks is rising and alternatives are permeating the educational world, students at the University of Oregon are still emptying their wallets for textbooks. But where that money goes and how the bookstore works is a mystery to most students.
The bookstore had 176 books priced above $100 in fall 2006, with the three most expensive all more than $200.
“The UO Bookstore prices however are 10% lower than what the vast majority of college stores charge for the same book,” Williams said in an e-mail. “Since 1920 the UO Bookstore has been owned by the students, faculty and classified staff of the University, and it is 501(c)3 non-profit corporation,” he added.
The bookstore offers a number of alternatives to buying that expensive new textbook such as the online book swap and “ebook.” It is one of the few college stores that post a book’s ISBN on “Book Hunt” so students can input a book’s information and shop around. Book buybacks, where the bookstore purchases a used book for half of the original cost, also give a student the opportunity save money.
“All of us at the UO Bookstore loves serving this campus, and we are constantly looking for ways to improve and more services to offer,” Williams said in an e-mail.
David Wu, D-Ore, and Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., asked the committee to conduct the study in June 2006. The Advisory Committee will report back to the House Education and the Workforce Committee with its findings and recommendations by May 2007.
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