Textbooks

Heavy, expensive course textbooks are the bane of students' backs and bank accounts – but will they be around for much longer’, asks Andrew Marszal.

According to researchers at the University of East London there is still a clear correlation between spending on course books and your degree grade.

Last month they published a paper revealing that those who obtained a first-class degree spent an average £239 on books, while those with a 2:2 averaged only £179. Students leaving with a third had shelled out just £146.

But textbooks are expensive. So what are the alternatives?

University libraries – generally free to borrow from – are perfect. However, they are unlikely to stock enough copies of the most essential reading to keep everyone happy.

Another option is to sell or indeed buy in the second-hand market. This is cheaper, greener and you don’t need to worry about folding the page corners.

One growing alternative is to buy or rent textbooks online. CourseSmart, set up to help students and universities access course materials on their digital devices, launched in North America in 2006. It currently has 3.3 million student and staff users, and launched in the UK last month.

So could this really be the start of a digital textbook revolution?

“In the consumer world we don’t expect to ever reach 100 per cent digital,” says Fionnuala Duggan, Managing Director of CourseSmart. “ But as digital becomes better and better, there will come a point where it is impossible for students to prefer physical – we will see more interaction, more multimedia, video and integration with homework tasks, which will make learning from a physical book simply impractical.”

Not all agree. Mehdi Maghsoodnia of BookRenter.com, which specialises in renting physical textbooks, told a newspaper earlier this year that 99 per cent of the educational market still use physical texts. “To help students, you have to lower the cost of textbooks,” he said.

Question 1. Indicate whether these sentences are true or false. Justify your answers with evidence from the text.

a) The more you spend on books the better marks you get.

b) University libraries offer more copies than students demand.

c) You need not be careful with second hand books.

d) Going digital will change the way students do their tasks.

Question 2. Answer the following questions in your own words.

a) What are the main advantages of buying second hand books?

b) What is CourseSmart?

Question 3. Find a word or a phrase in the text that means the same as:

a)         improbable par. 5

b)         created par.7

c)         mechanism, piece of machine par. 7

Question 4. Rewrite the following sentences without changing the meaning.

a) Last month they published a paper revealing that those who obtained a first-class degree spent an average £239 on books.

A paper………………………………………..

b) In the consumer world we don’t expect to ever reach 100 per cent digital

100 per cent digital is………………………..

c) Mehdi Maghsoodnia said “To help students, you have to lower the cost of textbooks”

Mehdi Maghsoodnia said that …………………………..

Question 5. Write a short essay (120-150 words) on the following topic:

Will digital information take the place of the traditional way of being informed?