August 29, 2006
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
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Perhaps what Mr. Stross is concerned about is the loss of quid pro quo that college faculty garner from publishers and colleagues when specifying course texts. How many of us have purchased a “required” text only to complete the course and have the book never referred to in the classroom? I think the idea of ad supported text books has merit and would prove a huge win for students as long as the quality of the texts is maintained.
— Mike Bender Aug 30, 01:25 PM #
Mike, I think that is so true. College professors seem to be an odd sort when it comes to text books. Why do introductory math texts change every three years? Does the math really change that much? Hardly.
I think the professors do get some perks from textbook publishers – even if it is just a fee to review a new text.
With the proliferation of material on the web, a textbook is not really required anymore. The only benefit a text has is that the whole class can be guided together with very little work. I can find all of the material from my classes on websites, and learn from that – for free.
I haven’ t seen a text from them yet, but if the ads are only mildly intrusive, I would love to not spend $120 for each text every semester.
— Jay Aug 30, 07:06 PM #