There Are 11 Responses So Far. »

1. 

   Comment by Scott Dobson-Mitchell on 17 September 2008:

   Thanks for this, Erin. It’s always nice to actually have the textbook in your hands, but the luxury isn’t always necessarily worth $200. I’m definitely going to check that site out.

   Scott

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2. 

   Comment by Travis Friesen on 17 September 2008:

   Also worth mentioning is Wikibooks – the Wikipedia project extended into textbooks. (http://en.wikibooks.org) Unfortunately, I haven’t had to explore either site thoroughly enough to properly compare them, but it seems that there’s quite a bit of redundant information on Connexion, as each professor, an ‘expert’ in his or her field sees the need to write his or her OWN version of each subject – a search for ‘entropy’ brings up 5-6 relevant and rather similar articles, all of which are rather brief.

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3. 

   Comment by Paul on 4 February 2009:

   Definitely worth bookmarking. Textbooks cost a ridiculous amount of money, and when you might not even end up needing a book for a class, it can end up being a gargantuan waste of money.

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4. 

   Comment by preston on 5 February 2009:

   been looking for this kind of thing for a long time

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5. 

   Comment by David Valentine on 9 February 2009:

   Thank you for making this resource available to students. Many of my colleagues–everyone in my college, in fact–deplore anything that diminishes accessibility of higher education, including unnecessarily escalation in textbook prices. In an era of outrageously priced textbooks, it’s important to explore and support alternative means of making reliable information available and accessible. Indeed, I do not use textbooks in my classes, and instead assign selected readings from a variety of sources to augment my lectures.

   It was therefore a bit jarring to read that “Professors often pad their paycheques with textbook sales while also requiring their own students to buy the book.” It’s true that some do, but a quick reality check would reveal that they are by far in the minority. First, we get very little career advancement from publishing a textbook. Indeed, our careers are advanced far more by publishing original research in peer-reviewed journals, which actually costs money (albeit generally not from us personally). Second, to be profitable, a textbook must be used by many more than one professor’s class. In other words, for every professor who publishes a textbook, tens or hundreds of others (depending on the field and class size) must adopt it instead of publishing their own.

   If we are guilty of anything, it is being less aware than we should be that the publishers that sweet-talk us into using their textbooks–by providing us with free copies and with promises of lots of online resources for students–are extracting such prohibitive sums from students. I would suggest that instead of demonizing us as profiteers, you should focus instead on ensuring that your faculty are aware of the financial hardships associated with their textbook assignments and ask that they consider less expensive alternatives. I believe many will.

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6. 

   Comment by v frost on 13 February 2009:

   Excellent and very informative. I will have to bookmark this and keep it in mind next semster. Thank you so much!

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7. 

   Comment by Rita on 9 March 2009:

   I understand that writers should have royalties over the hard work that is put into writing and detailing textbooks or books in general. However, I think it would be great to be able to download the books and use them as needed for classes. To save our trees would be another reason to have books available online or by computer. Wouldn’t it be great if, authors could get their pay and save a tree or two; help students without costing the student an arm an leg to learn.

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8. 

   Comment by linzij on 9 June 2009:

   I do wonder though how we came to be persuaded that purchasing a text rather than borrowing one was the way to go. Hard copy text do get updated regularly, as they need to do to maintain currency. But that is a reason for borrowing rather than buying, so can we steer students to libraries more and can libraries stock more textbooks (either online or physically). Added benefit would be more browsing through alternative sources if one is in the vicinity of other virtual or physical text. Consider a booklist rather than a set text as well – a strategy followed in non US educational establishments.

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9. 

   Comment by MCA on 12 June 2009:

   I’m in a medium-sized community college, and we have an adequate library, but we can’t afford to buy textbooks – not even one copy – of all the courses offered on campus. It would easily eat up our entire library materials budget to do so.

   Our nursing department supplies us with a copy that is placed on reserve. Most departments don’t have the wherewithall – or the insight – to do the same.

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10. 

    Comment by Linda on 14 November 2009:

    I truly think that downloadable text books are going to make a big impact on the future. There are several things to consider though. One good one is the environment, I don’t think anyone can deny that it’s important to find alternatives to help our forests. Another item would be cost. I think it’s important for student to save money on books, that is what my website is all about. However, managing and finding the information will be a huge task once companies like ours who are encouraging this change find themselves losing money. I say that not out of greed, but lets face it. We don’t want to have writers stop providing quality information, because the market does not pay. We also don’t want students paying the same amount searching for what they need, or paying monthly fees to many different online sources. I think that the effort needs to come from all of us. The writer, professor, student and provider. We need to keep our eye on the value of quality, affordable information to make this process happen quickly while providing a good experience for all.

    Linda

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11. 

    Comment by jagadish s b patil on 7 March 2010:

    sir i want to download electrical department books so please kindly help me

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