Are textbooks going the way of the card catalog?
• February 24, 2010 • By Kimberly Legocki With the cost of higher education soaring more than 30 percent in the past 10 years, lawmakers and academicians are looking to replace pricey textbooks with affordable learning solutions such as some e-books and greater use of library resources. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, estimates the state could save up to $350 million annually by making the switch. Not so fast, said California State University, East Bay Librarian Aline Soules. There are issues to resolve before considering e-books as a fiscal solution for a large urban serving university. “Making a paradigm shift of this magnitude is more complex than we realize,” Soules said. In a research by Soules, “E-books and user assumptions,” published in November’s Serials: The Journal for the Serials Community, she points out that while e-content sellers, such as Springer, have conducted studies of users’ e-book habits, most were conducted at research universities specializing in engin
