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Is there really a revolution in the educational uses of
information technology? Does the growing use of technology
replace, supplement, or increase the use of textbooks and
other print media? How can the textbook and college
publishing industry be flourishing when so many more students
are refusing to buy or keep books? Is the future for
textbooks published in English rosiest on other continents?
Do the traditional publishers know where they are going?
Does anyone?
Yesterday's New York Times ran a front-page article by Doreen
Carvajal, "Sales of Textbooks Continuing to Defy Gloomy
Predictions" triggered by the announcement that "Last weekend
the British media conglomerate Pearson P.L.C. agreed to buy
Simon & Schuster's education division of publishing imprints,
boasting about the future of textbooks and education as the
'great growth industry of our time' and instantly becoming
the industry behemoth." Later in the article, Patrick J.
Quinn, managing editor of the education group for Simba
Information Inc., a market research firm, is quoted: "In the
late 1980's and early 1990's much of the talk about education
centered on the emerging technologies -- that the book was
dead and traditional publishing was out, ...And now, through
all the hype and hoopla about it, textbooks have actually
started to sell at a brisker pace."
Explaining consolidation in the textbook publishing industry
during the early 1990s, Carvajal reports: "...major
publishers started to merge to compete. College publishers
sought to increase their share of the market by developing an
expensive array of free perks packaged with textbooks that
included graphics, computer disks, transparencies, videos and
even jokes for the first day of class. In some cases, the
textbook packages included up to 100 different elements,
driving up the price of psychology or science books to as
much as $100. Textbooks also became weightier with the
addition of graphics that expanded the number of pages in a
biology book from 400 several decades ago to more than 1,000
today."
This article doesn't mention two important trends and makes
me wonder if I've been misinterpreting or misrepresenting
them.
First, I've been told by faculty members and publishers that
the increases in textbook size and price result in part from
increases in knowledge and improvements in pedagogical
design. The range of information considered important to be
included in a certain level of biology course has grown
significantly. The likelihood of a vast majority of faculty
members within a discipline agreeing on a single small set of
topics for a widely taught course has decreased. In order to
satisfy most faculty, the textbook must include a wider range
of topics. In addition, during recent decades publishers
have learned how to integrate graphic design and other
instructional devices more effectively into books; but more
pages and printing expense are required to do so.
More intriguing, I continue to hear from bookstore managers
and publishers about the dramatic rise in the percent of
students who do not purchase textbooks (new or used) in
courses where they are required. I've heard that this
percent went from less than 5 to more than 30 during the past
five years. When I mention this to faculty members, I am
often greeted with exclamations of relief. Many faculty
members have assumed that this trend was a local problem
reflecting some shortcoming in their own teaching or a change
in the composition of their own student body. There are many
important exceptions to this trend: upper class departmental
majors buy books; textbooks that are also recognized as key
reference works in their fields are purchased; wealthier
students buy more books; etc.. However, I rarely hear
faculty claim that the pattern doesn't exist.
Some faculty explain the pattern as a result of students'
growing aversion to reading. Some students explain the
pattern as a result of tests and exams that focus primarily
on material covered in class.
Many colleagues of my vintage (age 40 and above) still own
most of their college books -- textbooks and others. We keep
many of those books carefully packed in cardboard cartons and
move them from house to house without ever opening the
cartons. We also display in our homes and offices shelves
full of books from our undergraduate and graduate days --
books that we haven't touched in decades. We unquestioningly
purchased every one of those books that any professor ever
required, and now we passionately resist any suggestion that
we abandon them.
By contrast, if current students do buy textbooks, it is
often with the understanding that they will be sold back to
the bookstore within a few days or weeks of the end of the
course -- possibly before the end of the course. Many of our
children find ways of sharing or altogether avoiding the
books "required" for their courses. Many modern students
have no idea of assembling a personal library.
Do the patterns described above apply much differently in
other countries? Is the international regard for U. S.
higher education the basis for a growing market for even the
more traditional textbooks and college reading materials
published in English?
What do you think about the recent consolidation and optimism
of textbook publishers? What might the emerging role of
technology really be? What are publishers doing with and on
the Web? How can accounting and financial budgeting
practices of publishers permit them to take seriously the
technology components "included" in textbook packages?
What is the future of the textbook? (More varied options
available to more varied teachers and learners? Different
versions for "distant" students vs. classroom students?
How will new knowledge of various learning abilities and
styles influence textbook design and options? Various
teaching abilities and styles? "Globalization" of
higher education?)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Information below last updated: 2/8/98
Steven W. Gilbert, President
THE TLT GROUP -- a Non-Profit Organization
The Teaching, Learning, and Technology Affiliate of AAHE
202/293-6440 X 54 FAX: 202/467-6593
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- Copyright 1998 Steven W. Gilbert
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 13:10:28 -0400
From: "Steven W. Gilbert" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
To: The TLT Group <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: AAHESGIT113: Textbooks -- Retreat, Renaissance, or Revolution?
(5/27/98 AAHESGIT #113. Approx. 120 lines from me.
An article in yesterday's NY Times provoked the questions and
comments below. I'd like your help in understanding emerging
trends in textbook and college publishing, the future of the
textbook, and the implications for educational uses of
information technology.)
Steve Gilbert ===============================================
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