‘Sex vs. Textbooks’ survey doesn’t jibe with student preferences

Textbooks can weigh more than 20 pounds.

One in four college students said in a recent survey that they’d give up sex for a year if it meant never again having to carry textbooks around campus, but majorities of students in other opinion polls show a reluctance to give up on traditional texts and switch entirely to electronic books.

Kno Inc., a California-based educational software company, released a survey July 27 that has grabbed the attention of educators and students alike—and not so much because the survey shows that lugging heavy books from the dorm to the lecture hall and back isn’t fun, but because of what, exactly, young adults would sacrifice to rid their lives of their 800-page biology text.

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Site lets college students find low-price textbooks, quickly

Students paid an average of $1,100 for books and supplies last academic year.

Students’ hours-long web searches for cheap textbooks might be over.

SwoopThat.com, a site launched this spring, lets college students search many of the most popular websites – including Chegg.com, BookRenter.com and Amazon — for low-cost textbooks in one easy step: Plugging in a class schedule.

Once the student enters his or her courses for the coming semester, SwoopThat generates a list of every book needed for each class, along with every online textbook service that offers those textbooks at a discount. SwoopThat, which searches more than 15 million textbooks, has matched books to courses at 380 colleges, universities, and private schools.…Read More

New textbook exchange site helps students ‘defy’ publishers

College students spend more than $900 annually on textbooks.

After a bachelor’s degree, a law degree, and a business degree, Derek Haake estimates his total textbook costs at around $20,000 — and now he’s hitting back at the publishing industry with a website that could slash college students’ book costs.

Haake, of Akron, Ohio, launched the site BookDefy.com in April, creating a forum for students hoping to sell their textbooks for more than a few bucks to peers looking to save cash on used books.

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Florida college looks to become eBook pioneer

iPads will be among to eReader choices for Daytona State College students.
iPads will be among to eReader choices for Daytona State College students.

An all-eTextbook campus won’t just make Florida’s Daytona State College the envy of the education-technology world. The program will also save academic careers cut short when students can’t afford their books, pushing Daytona officials to find an electronic alternative and perhaps serve as a model for higher education.

Daytona State, a 35,000-student institution and a former community college, has been moving toward a “100 percent” eBook campus since 2009, using electronic texts in English, computer science, and economics courses, said Rand Spiwak, Daytona’s chief financial officer and executive vice president.

Daytona’s eBook initiative would allow students to buy electronic texts for about $20 apiece, Spiwak said, and the books would be accessible on any web-enabled eReader. The college would make affordable eReaders available to students or students could read their books on one of the thousands of on-campus computers.…Read More

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