Dear Editor,

Kate Gaertner’s Aug. 31 column about electronic textbooks (“University should push for paperless textbooks”) contains the sentence “Because of the frequency at which teachers change their preferred editions…”

Ms. Gaertner’s tone suggests that faculty do not consider the economic impact of textbook publisher policies on students when choosing textbook editions.

Textbook publishers change editions rather frequently, in my view, to undercut the used book market.  Personally, I would much rather just use the “extinct” edition of textbooks I adopt and not adopt the new edition, but I was told by the bookstore that the students would not be able to sell back their textbooks to the bookstore.  I have been given grief by one local sales rep, because I let the bookstore order used textbooks and don’t use ISBN numbers that are for “new only from the publisher” versions.

In the past I used an excellent textbook that the publisher stopped updating with new editions and stopped printing additional copies.  It became very difficult for the bookstore to find enough of the title to meet student enrollment.

I think that students should have the option of using electronic textbooks, if they want them. But I also think that students who prefer paper copies should have that option.

Any textbooks that students regard as “useless paper, print and cardboard” should be donated to the local YMCA book sale, Nursery Foundation book sale or not-for-profit that ships the books to Third World countries.  Extinct editions are definitely not useless paper. Copies of extinct editions that I have used have been donated to local high schools and a school in South America.

Carol A. Prombo, Ph.D.
Lecturer, Earth and Planetary Sciences