But through a new initiative state university system officials plan to announce today [9/24], Florida college students can get digital versions of some of those pricey textbooks for free. Students who really want a print version can order one custom-bound for between $30 and $50 — far cheaper than even many used textbooks.
The project, dubbed Orange Grove Texts Plus, is a partnership involving the University Press of Florida, the state university system's nonprofit publishing arm; the Virginia publisher Integrated Book Technology; and Orange Grove, the state's digital database of K-20 teaching material.
So far 124 titles covering a range of subject areas are available digitally, with more being added as scholarly authors sign on to the project. The goal: reduce college students' annual textbook tab, which can run in excess of $1,200.
The move appeals not just to students' pocketbooks, but to their tech-savvy nature. They already listen to course lectures on iPods and use sites like Blackboard.com, where professors post practice quizzes and other course material. So why not textbooks, too?
"The concept of this is more important here than the number of volumes we have right now," chancellor Frank Brogan said. "Over time we can get more and more authors and more and more publishers — and then that gives students a better menu to choose from."
The Orange Grove initiative comes as major textbook publishers are beginning to offer a significant portion of their books in digital form, even though e-textbooks still represent just a small portion of the $7-billion-a-year industry's revenues.
CourseSmart, a spinoff company started by major textbook publishers, currently sells more than 7,300 titles that students can read on their computers or iPhones. And Amazon is supporting an e-textbook experiment with seven universities, including Princeton, to evaluate the use of e-textbooks.
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