The online book would include only the latest information every year and could be customized for a particular class. For a range of prices, students could buy printed copies, study guides and quizzes.
All of the material would be available for all to see and shape for their own particular college experience.
These books actually aren't that far from reality. Called "open source," the concept is just taking hold at some colleges and publishing houses around the country, including Miami University.
For those concerned about textbook prices that have many students spending $1,500 or more a year, it's the Holy Grail.
They say rentals, exchanges and used books - tactics that college students have employed for decades - have done little to slow the inexorable rise in textbook prices.
Digital versions of existing textbooks hold promise, they contend, but still give publishers too much power to control material and set prices.
They say open source material puts the information in the hands of students and professors.
"It gives students the choice as to how much they want to spend," said Saul Adelman, a finance professor at Miami who had used open source books in his Risk Management class. "I'm concerned about book prices. That's why I explored this option."
The concept is simple: Publishers pay an expert to write a book, then put it online. A professor can use the free version, even picking certain chapters for certain classes.
Students can access the free version online or buy printable documents for only a few dollars or a black-and-white bound version for about $35. Other study aids also are available for fees. That's how the publisher makes money and pays royalties.
"You're really giving each professor a digital copy they can adapt to their students," said Eric Frank, president of Flat World Publishing, a New York-based company that is one of several formed to create a profitable business model out of open-source publishing. Four Miami professors have used Flat World Knowledge textbooks.
"People are looking for content to be more flexible," Frank added. "They want to be able to blend it into other things they're doing."
Traditionalists worry that without strict peer review or editing that comes at the big publishing houses, the quality of the books will suffer and the information will be at the whim of individual professors or students.
But even they acknowledge that the day has passed where students take a book, paying whatever price is printed on the cover, read it and take an exam.
"I think we'll always have some textbooks," said Charles Ginn, a psychology professor at the University of Cincinnati. "But I'd much rather the students have an e-text that has all the material on it than Googling, if that's their choice. No one really knows if what they're finding online is good or bad."
For the nearly 100,000 college students starting classes this fall on campuses around Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, they are looking for any form of relief they can find from sky-high prices for new books.
"Anything that can lower the cost of attendance is something that students are looking for," said Heath Ingram of Maineville, a senior public administration major and president of the student government at Miami. "Having other alternatives is very important. Students have informal ways of doing that. But anything we can do to lower the cost, we're going to do it."
According to the Student Public Interest Research Group, textbooks cost an average of $900 a year nationally and have increased four times the rate of inflation since 1994.
The high prices have even gotten the federal government involved. A new law that just took effect requires publishers to disclose textbook prices to professors while they are marketing the book and offer versions that aren't bundled with auxiliary products. It also requires colleges to include a list of required books as a student is registering for classes.
For those thinking beyond this year, the future of lowering textbook prices appears to be online.
Ingram said at Miami, more professors each year are posting book chapter on academic Internet sites, helping students to avoid the need for a brand-new textbook.
But most students still print out that material, he said, echoing the word on several college campuses that students don't want to convert completely to online products.
"I think e-books will continue to grow, especially as students who use them in high school get to college," said Linda Gindele, director of Follett bookstores at UC. She said digital books are only about 2 percent of all the books sold now.
Ginn said he hasn't printed a course syllabus in 10 years. He has even put some lectures on youtube.com or other online sites.
"I don't think about what book we're going to adopt," he said. "It's how we're going to deliver content."
A statewide project sponsored by the Ohio Board of Regents and the OhioLINK library program, called the Ohio Digital Bookshelf Project, is pushing making more digital books available. Starting with introductory classes that often include hundreds of students, the project could reach as many as 70,000 students statewide, they say.
The e-books typically cost about $50 and include study guides, practice quizzes and links to other material.
Ginn said a recent survey showed that about 28 percent of UC students would choose a digital textbook, more than three-quarters of students in online classes would choose them.
While digital books might be the future, expanded book rentals are a prominent strategy now.
Several campuses around the region, including Northern Kentucky University, Xavier University, the College of Mount St. Joseph and UC, have a new textbook rental program on campus this fall.
Installed by Follett, the program offers books at 45 percent of the price of a new book, Gindele said.
Students are allowed to write in the books. On the last day of classes, they have to return the book or pay a fee of more than 80 percent of the new-book price.
At UC's bookstore in the Tangeman University Center, the program already includes about one-third of the titles, Gindele said.
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