Comments on: What’s Happening to College Bookstores? http://www.teleread.com/textbooks/whats-happening-to-college-bookstores/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Mon, 20 May 2013 09:37:30 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: gingeroni http://www.teleread.com/textbooks/whats-happening-to-college-bookstores/comment-page-1/#comment-1245478 gingeroni Thu, 28 Feb 2013 22:05:47 +0000 http://www.teleread.com/?p=80213#comment-1245478 <i>The fat from all other areas of campus life is generally perceived as long gone after years of successive budget cuts. </i> They may "perceive" the fat is gone but it's not. A few years ago I got a group email from the University president touting our wonderful "Diversity Office". They had increased from 16 people to over 300. That's 300 more people NOT teaching students or doing research, just pure overhead. A few months ago, that department metastasized. They're now trying to put "diversity officers" in every department and group to make sure people are properly aware of diversity. That's just the one example that has stuck in my mind for years now. I'm sure there are others. The fat from all other areas of campus life is generally perceived as long gone after years of successive budget cuts.

They may “perceive” the fat is gone but it’s not. A few years ago I got a group email from the University president touting our wonderful “Diversity Office”. They had increased from 16 people to over 300. That’s 300 more people NOT teaching students or doing research, just pure overhead. A few months ago, that department metastasized. They’re now trying to put “diversity officers” in every department and group to make sure people are properly aware of diversity.

That’s just the one example that has stuck in my mind for years now. I’m sure there are others.

]]> By: John Mayer http://www.teleread.com/textbooks/whats-happening-to-college-bookstores/comment-page-1/#comment-1245022 John Mayer Thu, 28 Feb 2013 06:28:27 +0000 http://www.teleread.com/?p=80213#comment-1245022 "..The best solution, I think, is for institutions of higher education to redirect their considerable human, technical and organizational assets toward creating and distributing their own e-textbooks. .." This is exactly what law schools are doing at http://elangdell.cali.org. CALI is a consortium that pays law faculty to write textbooks/casebooks and then publishes them under a Creative Commons license for anyone. It's not free - authors still get compensated, institutions pay the freight, but its a very efficient model. “..The best solution, I think, is for institutions of higher education to redirect their considerable human, technical and organizational assets toward creating and distributing their own e-textbooks. ..”

This is exactly what law schools are doing at http://elangdell.cali.org. CALI is a consortium that pays law faculty to write textbooks/casebooks and then publishes them under a Creative Commons license for anyone. It’s not free – authors still get compensated, institutions pay the freight, but its a very efficient model.

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