From The Chronicle of Higher Education:
The university recently negotiated a deal with upstart publisher Flat World Knowledge that treats buying e-books like buying campuswide software—with the institution paying a small per-student fee. The university plans to formally announce the deal Tuesday.
Student complaints about the high cost of traditional textbooks drove the university to try the giveaway. “For our accounting books senior year, there’s nothing under $250,” said Mirta Martin, dean of the Virginia State University business school. “What the students were saying is we don’t have the money to purchase these books.” …
In its standard model, Flat World offers free access to its textbooks only while students are online. If students want to download a copy to their own computers, they must pay $24.95 for a PDF (a print edition costs about $30). But the publisher offered the business school a bulk rate of $20 per student per course, and it will allow students at the school to download not only the digital copies but also the study guide, audio version, or iPad edition (a bundle that would typically cost about $100).
