Florida State College at Jacksonville’s partnership with CafeScribe is just the latest eBook development to come from Florida since last fall. The board that oversees Florida’s state universities launched a program in September that will offer free online textbooks to students; the program makes printed books available as well, for about half the price that students now pay every semester.
More than 120 textbooks are available to Florida state university students for downloading free of charge through the program, called Orange Grove Texts Plus.
The initiative is a partnership with University Press of Florida. And if a student wants a printed book, he or she can buy the text for up to half off the prices found at most retail and online book stores, University Press officials said. The books will be sold for $29 to $54 apiece.
Orange Grove officials are touring the state to lobby college faculty members to submit their textbooks to the free online repository. Cathy Alfano, a project manager for Orange Grove, said California bolstered its online textbook collection with a similar strategy.
An Orange Grove survey found that 22 percent of students were “uncomfortable” reading from a laptop or personal computer screen, while 33 percent of students said they were “comfortable.” Three-quarters of students in the survey said they preferred to read a print textbook instead of a digital textbook, and 60 percent of students said they would buy a discounted printed book even if the text was available for free online.
Links:
Florida State College at Jacksonville’s SIRIUS program
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