terrapinsanity.com

Today’s Washington Post carries an AP report that book rental programs are struggling. Intended to help students lower the cost of accessing scholarly materials, rentals might cut the up-front expense of a student’s outright purchase of the same material, but with less flexibility and greater risk to the company, which (according to the present report) must make about three rentals of a given item in order to break even. The pace at which much of this content changes, however, narrows the window of demand for a given book’s edition, to the point that it is superseded before it gets close to profitability.

In other words, these services hit much the same wall as any other distribution mechanism for content.

Ebook options have not paid off for similar reasons. While these cost less as well, and don’t face such a high initial barrier to reach profitability for the vendor, selection of products is limited (not everything is available in electronic form) and students find they don’t have the same flexibility in use of the materials (highlighting, note taking and so on – not to mention the fact that many of these cease being available a fixed number of months after purchase, so good luck referring back to it in the future.)

Some complain that faculty are somehow frivolous in selecting materials, increasing the pace of change. This might be the case in rare instances, but generally does not ring true. Most faculty are so busy that we value any little bit of stability in our lives we can get. We learn pretty early on that gratuitously switching materials demands re-prep for the course. Even if only in part, that is overhead we know we can cut out in favor of advising, research and other duties. Most changes come from the companies simply not making old editions available.

And Maryland’s efforts to legislate the costs to lower levels? Per a new law of yesteryear, faculty are required to certify that we understand the impact of high book costs on students, but so far there is no evidence it has had any effect. And now that we think of it – there hasn’t been any recent sign that the campus is even tracking these certifications to report compliance. No savings to students, coupled with implementation costs for certifying compliance that now isn’t even being checked. Now that’s a law that generates a new generation of cynics.