Are We Headed Toward the Bookless Campus?

It's hard to imagine campuses without printed books. But the era of the e-book in higher education is clearly dawning.

Companies are largely driving the agenda: Digital-library enterprises and companies pitching a new breed of electronic textbooks are already making their presence felt on campuses. Software developers and device manufacturers are beginning to target e-book products to college users. Even traditional publishers are treading warily into the field -- although, as one says, "There is much less student demand than we might have imagined."

Meanwhile, critics of the technology and the people who are talking it up offer differing understandings of the e-book itself: Is it something that must be read from a reading device with built-in software? Is it something that can be read from a laptop computer or a personal digital assistant?

In the articles that follow, The Chronicle examines the possibilities of e-textbooks, the impact that e-books are having on academic libraries, and an experiment in teaching with e-texts using specialized reading devices.

• Publishers Promote E-Textbooks, but Many Students and Professors Are Skeptical
  
  
• Companies Find Academic Libraries a Key Target and a Tough Sell
  
  
• Academic E-Publishing: Some Key Players
  
  
• A University That Reveres Tradition Experiments With E-Books
  
  
• Author Says Libraries Shouldn't Abandon Paper
  
  

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