Blog — BookNet Canada

educational publishing

The Revolution Will Be Open and Accessible!

On the trade side, we often forget that the shift to digital is affecting academic publishing as well. Recently, there’s been a lot of debate over how to handle journal publication and access to research. The business model is changing there too, as was evident during Open Access week, a global event, now in its 4th year, which promotes Open Access as a new norm in scholarship and research. I attended one of its events in Guelph that had me yearning to work on campus with academics.

New Publishing Business Model #7: Textbook Rentals

Cengage Learning is turning the unique features of the higher education market into a completely different model for students and publishers: textbook rental. For 30-70% of list price, students are able to use a textbook for a set period of time before having to make the decision to give it back or buy it.

CourseSmart: Textbooks to Go

I want to go back to university. Not for the (shudder) keggers or the questionable fashion choices or the unquestioned sense that I knew exactly the right way that people, all people should live (man), but instead so that I could get through four years without sowing the seed of chronic back problems later in life. Imagine how life would have been different with iPHONE TEXTBOOKS!

More Kindle: This Time, Textbooks

After an astute tip from one of our Twitter friends (thanks, @Keith_Shay), my last post on the likely soon-to-be-released Kindle didn’t really take everything into account. Yes, the new screen on the Kindle is well-suited for newspapers and it’s certainly the case that newspapers like the NY Times see it as a new frontier to re-capture hearts and minds (or at least eyeballs).

However, as many more astute than me have realized, Amazon’s press conference is being held at a university (Pace University)—so looks like textbooks are the big fish frying.