That's the take from this Toronto Star article: Mixed feelings about the loss of a bookstore at Ryerson University and the sequestering of its books, by the students... though not by the article's author. "Poor books. Snubbed yet again, this time by a university, an institution of learning." The article describes the closure of one campus bookstore, causing confusion by students who walked into the building to find it being repurposed as classroom and office space.  Some of the books were moved to the other campus bookstore; the remainder were put into a storage room, and some will be returned to the...

CNet has an article about Google’s stripped-down Chromebook laptops, and their placement in schools. In a speech at the Florida Educational Technology Converence yesterday, Rajen Sheth, Google’s leader of Chromebook work for business and education, announced that hundreds of schools across 41 states have outfitted at least one classroom with Chromebooks. Three schools in Illinois, Iowa, and South Carolina will be outfitting all their students with the devices—over 27,000 in all. The schools appreciate the advantages the device offers of constant updates, cloud storage, and “invisibility” in terms of booting and use—teachers can focus on instruction rather than technical...

E-textbook company Kno has popped out a press release saying that it found 95% of college students who used its e-textbook application “found it very useful and plan to use it again”. The company conducted a study with four California community colleges, on 400 students and faculty in 27 classes using an open-source statistics textbook. "It is exciting to see the book brought to life through digital enhancements by Kno," said Barbara Illowsky, a Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, De Anza College [and co-author of the statistics textbook]. "The student feedback reinforces the need for...

On Hack Education, Audrey Watters has a fairly long look at why Apple’s new textbook announcement may not be as revolutionary as expected. She was not impressed by Apple’s presentation, stating it lacked Steve Jobs’s magic touch, “the kind of thing that made both fans and skeptics say, ‘Yes, (perhaps) this changes everything.’” She points out that Apple is partnering with the three companies that already make up 90% of the textbook industry, and they have already gotten into digital textbooks (to the tune of $3 billion last year by just one of them). One of...

On TechCrunch, MG Siegler looks at the new education programs launched by Apple and what they really mean for high schoolers. In Siegler’s opinion, not much. While they might give college students incentive to get iPads, he finds it doubtful that most high school students will be able to get their own, in keeping with Apple’s stated goal that students should be able to buy e-textbooks and keep them forever. The program will be great for college students, Siegler points out. The idea of textbook prices capped at $15 makes the sting of not being able to “sell them...

Ars Technica has a roundup of expectations for tomorrow’s special Apple event. Sources are suggesting a number of interesting possibilities, such as Apple producing a “GarageBand for e-books”—an inexpensive app that simplifies e-book creation and publication as GarageBand has for music. But Apple may have more up its sleeve than just an e-book creation application. It may be planning announcements having to do with digital textbooks, especially considering that the iPad has a great big screen and multimedia capabilities that the company hasn’t really tapped yet for textbook applications. [Inkling CEO Matt] MacInnis...

E-textbook provider Kno has not let getting out of the tablet business slow it down. (Indeed, given the lackluster performance of any tablet not made by Apple or Amazon lately, it was probably the wisest move it could have made.) CNet has a report from CES on some new features Kno has been adding to its e-textbooks. The features include metrics built into the textbooks that will track things like the time students spend reading, notes they’ve taken, and study habits. It will let them compare their own study habits to those of others, and let professors see how...

I’m sure everyone who went to college has had the experience of having to buy a whole book when their professor only turned out to need a few chapters from it. One of the obvious benefits of digital media is that it is more easily segmented than a printed and bound book; in theory, students ought to be able to buy just the parts they need. That’s the idea behind e-textbook site Bookstep.com. This startup allows students to buy just the portions of books and materials their professors need for their classes. Founder Mike Basaraba tells Publishing Perspectives: ...

From The Chronicle of Higher Education: Attention spans are short. E-readers are plentiful. Digital delivery is fast and convenient. How can university presses turn those facts to their advantage and attract readers who want bite-sized morsels of content? Princeton University Press is about to test one approach with a new, e-only series. Called Princeton Shorts, it debuts November 9. The article explains that Princeton Shorts will not be new material, like Kindle Singles; rather, it will be excerpts only of backlist material from Princeton University Press.  The full books will be available through Kindle and Google Books. Princeton University Press considers this an experiment,...

Steve Jobs has been dead for a few weeks, and so it’s time for everyone to start prognosticating what Jobs really wanted, what he really thought about things, and what he had in mind for the future. Easy to do that when the man isn’t around to speak for himself. Much of this comes from Jobs’s authorized biography, which has been released to newsmedia in advance of its actual publication. Most of it isn’t really on topic for discussion here, but the New York Times mentions that Jobs was planning to hire textbook writers to create digital versions of...

Wired’s Gadget Lab blog reports on the state of digital textbooks, and despite the optimism of some e-textbook manufacturers it isn’t really good. E-textbooks aren’t making much of a dent in the textbook market because most of the time buying and reselling used textbooks is still a better deal. Even though the current generation of students are more dependent on digital technology and mobile devices than ever, most aren’t buying e-textbooks because they are pricier and more heavily restricted than paper books—locked down so students have only limited use of them, and sometimes even expiring after six months....

Here’s some more intriguing e-textbook news from Kno, who recently released a survey showing that the majority of college students would give up sex to avoid carrying heavy textbooks, and who also released an HTML5-based app that allows students to read textbooks through Facebook and the web, Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch has an interesting piece looking at some new interactive features in Kno’s e-textbook iPad app. One such feature is a form of 3D modeling that can convert chemical notations showing how atoms bond together into 3D models that can be enlarged and rotated so students can get...