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August 29, 2006, 01:08 PM ET
Can Ads Make It in Academic Textbooks?
Freeload Press, a fledgling publisher in Minnesota, generated a good deal of buzz this month when it announced plans to offer free downloadable college textbooks that come peppered with ads (The Chronicle, August 16). It is an intriguing idea, says Randall Stross, a professor of business at San Jose State University, but it’s not much of a business plan.
In The New York Times, Mr. Stross argues that most scholars still consider textbooks to be sacred spaces. Required readings, he says, are "no more likely to be considered an appropriate place for corporate ads than the classroom lectern (or the instructor’s forehead)."
Even if Freeload could convince professors that ads are not an enemy to scholarship, Mr. Stross says, the company doesn’t seem to have the momentum to become much more than "a concept with dubious prospects." The company’s e-books haven’t earned especially favorable reviews, and even its name—which "conjures an image of party crashers cadging free beer, not a publishing concern striving for the highest intellectual standards"—fails to inspire confidence. —Brock Read
Categories: Company-Watch, Teaching
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