The astronomical price of textbooks
Published on Nov 14, 2005 at 8:04 pm.
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Filed under college teaching.
Every now and then, I look at the price of the books that our students buy, and I am amazed. The price is simply staggering. To make it worse, they can’t really buy used books because the textbook publishers are always coming up with new editions. The publishers say that they have to put out new additions all the time to keep current. Excuse me? For some fields, I can see that. For my introductory astronomy classes, there is actually a LOT of new information, or different information, that is relevant to the class. There are always new discoveries. This is a very dynamic and exciting field. However, for my introductory physics class, nothing has changed. In fact, the introductory physics class that I teach is basically the same class that I had. The big difference is in the problems. My old book had a student placing a penny on a rotating record in a record player. We had to calculate how far out we can place the penny before it slides off. The new book has a problem with placing a penny on a rotating CD and calculating how far out from the center the penny can be placed before it slides off. Big deal. Same problem. It goes on, with similar Earth-shattering changes and updates. So, why a new edition every three years (or more!)? Well, my old book did not have color photos. The new book has lots of color photos. That, and the new book costs about $120 more than mine did. You students had better enjoy those pictures. You are sure paying for them! Other than that, there is VERY little difference. There has not been a discovery of a new Newton’s law, nor an updated speed of light, nor any other such thing bearing on first year physics.
Besides driving up costs, new editions are extra work for me. Now, if I didn’t actually make assignments out of the textbook, then that would not be such an inconvenience for me. It is particularly annoying if the book rep doesn’t even bother telling me, the prof, that they are coming out with a new edition. On a couple of occasions, I have made out my syllabus, only to be surprised when students walk into class with a newer edition than mine! Hey, I thought that the bookstore was supposed to order what I adopted. Right? Well, they said that the publisher would not sell them the old edition so they got the new one. And no one bothered to tell the prof teaching the class?!?!?
Again, some books I can understand such rapid changes. My intro atronomy, for one. Some upper division books, perhaps. But every textbook in every subject? What, has Shakesphere written a new play lately that we need a new Shakesphere textbook edition? Was a new edition needed to correct typos that somehow were missed in the previous six editions of the book? The book reps tell me that they need to keep changing editions to force students to buy the new books instead of used ones. They also say that they charge so much for textbooks because they don’t sell as many as they used to due to the very active used book market. Well, Duh!!!!! They charge so much for books, that OF COURSE students will buy used books, and they will sell back their old books to afford to buy a new one for the next semester. If the books were more reasonably priced, then students might keep the more interesting ones, and perhaps buy more new ones.
The textbook companies have us all over the barrel (especially the students). They need the books to do well in the classes. So they can charge as much as the market can bear. Most faculty don’t look at how much the textbooks cost.
Anyway, that’s my little rant from my soapbox on textbook prices.
-Astroprof
