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Etextbooks not big on campus, neither are ereaders, says new survey
October 28, 2010 | 11:34 am
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By Paul Biba
Publishers Weekly is reporting the results of a study by the National Association of College stores. Etextbooks and ereaders are not popular, the survey discloses.
74% of students prefer print and only 13% purchased an ebook in the last three months. Of those that purchased one, 56% did so because it was required.
Only 8% of students owned an ereading device and 59% of those that don’t own one have no plans to purchase one. For ebook buyers, 77% read on a laptop or a netbook. As to devices, the iPhone was the ereader of choice, followed by the Nook. More statistics in the article.
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I requested and received the questions used on last year’s survey. The questions are loaded so that results conform to what they hoped to find. Methodologically bankrupt as good empirical research.
I am not surprised Frank. But I am also not surprised if he results were to be correct. This subject was discussed a couple of weeks ago and it was clear from that that we are still very much in a transition period where eReaders and eTexts are not ready for the kind of primetime Students need. Students don’t have time to be messing around with half ready functionality. They have exams to pass and right now paper is still king.
What about this part of the article?
-59% have no plans to purchase an ereader anytime soon (i.e. within the next three months)
So 41% of college students either own an ereader or plan on purchasing one in the next three! months- and this is being interpretted to mean they AREN’T popular?
Well there is a big problem with the assumptions in this survey — as some of you may know, I am a college professor who has written articles for TeleRead in the past.
Anyway, most of the college e-textbooks come in pdf. Of course, this means that most e-readers are not great devices for reading them. Most students I know end up reading them on pc’s/laptops. The most popular source of these texts seems to be coursesmart.com — feel free to check it out.
For the average college student, the main reason to explore e-texts is price. Personally, I do think that there are other advantages, but price is what moves ‘impoverished’ students. The good news is that these e-texts are often half the price of new texts, but this is not necessarily the best bargain to be had. One of the biggest issues is that there is no resale possible with an e-text.
So, you can buy it new and resale it back to the bookstore for a net price probably similar to the e-text. Or, buy it used from the bookstore or online. If it still has any resale value, your net price on a used text is probably even lower. Some creative students look for international versions of texts (sorry, I’m assuming US colleges), and the price can be 25% of the new retail price.
On the other hand, the problem with these alternative approaches is risk. For resale, is there a new edition coming out? In regard to international versions, it is gray market at best and it clearly violates the publishers EULA, The student also takes the risk that the international version may not exactly match their ‘official’ text, but I have never heard of this happening.
So, the e-text is a simple way to save half-off, but there are cheaper alternatives available with a little work.