Can Digital Books Truly Replace paper Kind?

The discomfort points of traditional print edition books are apparent: To begin with they are heavy, using the average physics textbook coming in at a troublesome 3.6 pounds. They are also costly, particularly when you element in the typical college student's limited budget, typically costing 100s of dollars every semester.

However the worst part is the fact that print versions of books are constantly going through microscopic revisions. Many professors require their students only use the most recent versions within the class, basically rendering older texts useless. For college students, this means they are essentially tied to a four pound paperweight they can't sell back (and even when they are able to, it's for a small fraction of the price).

(MORE:�Great News, Students: Amazon . com Intros Kindle Textbook�Rentals)

And that's why digital books, when they meet their promise, may help alleviate several discomfort points. But till now, they have been something similar to a mirage within the distance, a lot more like a hazy dream than a real reality. Think of the promise: Transporting all of your books inside a svelt 1.3 pound iPad It may sound almost too good to be real.

But you will find a couple of pilot schools already making the transition to e-books. Cornell and Brown are probably the Ivies to possess leaped onboard. And something medical program in the College of California, Irvine, gave all of their class iPads that to download books just this past year.

Although not all were wanting to jump aboard.

"Everyone was type of weary to make use of the iPad textbook besides utilizing it for reading through," states Kalpit Shah, who definitely are starting his second year at Irvine's medical program this Fall.�"They were not utilizing it like a supply of communication simply because they could not read or write inside it. So a�third of those during my program were while using iPad at school to consider notes, another third were using laptops and also the last third were using paper and pencil."

The main reason it has not caught on yet, he informs me, is the fact that tablet edition books are just that: flat PDF-like files on screen. Their functionality can be quite limited, and fewer tech savvy students just aren't motivated to understand new study behavior.

(story proceeds next page...)

Pages: 1 2 3

pos retail pos for retail