Re: [Textbook-l] high textbook prices article

Thanks for posting this Karl. It's been a little-known fact that overseas MSRP for American-produced university textbooks are far lower. The article is simply one more example of the gravy train that textbook publishers have been on for the last four decades, since the baby boomers started their formal years of schooling. Every few years commercial textbook publishers obsolete their university textbooks with "new editions". These "new edition" updates are often little more than minor updates that compel students to buy new textbooks, in order to kill the used book market. I heard that college textbook publishers have a "lease" arrangement with at least one state (I think it might be Texas). In this state, university books are leased. When they reach the end of their life cycle they are trucked off to landfills (dozens of truckloads) to keep them from the used book market. This is wasteful in the extreme, shameful (in terms of environmental impact), and yet another example of a content sector that's unable to creatively leverage IP. Some years ago, while employed with one of the companies mentioned in the NYT article, I discovered quite by accident that a very popular mathematics textbook selling for roughly $80.00 in America could be had as a paperback edition in India for just over $6.00. I was taken back by that; in fact, it's what started me thinking about how distributed, open content environments could easily replace the inefficient textbook creation system that was in place at the time (about 1995). Let's make this textbook project happen, and save the world's K-12 and university students billions in the process, while providing content that is second to none in quality, and variety. Sanford ----- Original Message ----- From: "Karl Wick" <karlwick(a)yahoo.com> To: "text" <textbook-l(a)wikipedia.org> Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 1:43 PM Subject: [Textbook-l] high textbook prices article