Stephen Downes
Stephen's Web
Access your notes even after your textbook subscription expires
I still have my university textbooks - and the idea of these texts expiring is offensive to me. Yes, it's true, I don't look at them a lot, though I have, in the past (like when I was trying to remember year 2 stuff in year 3). But on the other hand, I have an excellent scientific and philosophical library. It wouldn't matter to me if the library were digital (in fact, it would be better in many ways). But it would matter if it didn't exist. The idea of being required to study something I won't even be able to read later (without paying a toll) is not only odd and disturbing to me, it is offensive. (p.s. I will be at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week, assuming I can fly in the U.S., so watch for some video and commentary). Wesley Fryer, Moving at the Speed of Creativity, January 5, 2010 3:40 p.m.. [Link]Comments
Re: Access your notes even after your textbook subscription expires
No doubt commercial publishers will try to accomplish their long-standing goals of 1) crushing what they call the "secondary market" (used books) and 2) nullifying the centuries-old legal concept of First Sale (undergirds library lending as well as the used book market).
Whether they are able to accomplish any of this will probably depend more on the consumers and producers (faculty for the most part) than on the technology. Sure, there will be technology (DRM) that will lock-upand expire the eTexts offered by commercial publishers. However,current and emerging technology also enables free or radically less expensive, open and superior eTexts.
Since current and rumored Apple technology is mentioned as a vector for commercial publishers, let me point to a few recent developments that indicate, to me, that this need not be a Brave New World of thought police and all that.
Apple has released the TuneKit framework (used for iTunes LPs and Movie Extras) as open source and there appears to be more of that kind of thing in the pipeline (PastryKit for example). These are javascript frameworks so they don't have to come from Apple. These frameworks are important because they can be used to develop eTexts that are both media rich and interactive. The reader is already with us in the form of Safari on these mobile devices and many other browsers on platforms other than Apple mobile devices.
Since not much of what is typically found in text books is copyrightable (facts are not copyrightable), it is quite possible that academic individuals and collectives will be able to produce and distribute superior eTexts quite outside of the commercial publishing world. They can be media rich and interactive, free or radically less expensive that paper texts and open to being consumed at any time, any place and in perpetuity as well.
The question is whether we who are curators of our culture's assets will make this happen or not. Many academics will not because they are either receiving income from commercial publishers or hope to receive such compensation one day. Promotion and tenure (P&T) policies also enter into this equation. Will those P&T committees credit non-commercial publication or will they see it as "vanity publication?"
This will be interesting to watch, more interesting to participate in.
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