From KindleBoards:
I am a college professor and am currently writing a report for our administration on the feasibility of using a Kindle for college textbooks. I wrote to the publishers mentioned in Amazon's May 6 press release (http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1285140) and received a response from one of them indicating that Amazon will be opening a Kindle DX textbook "store" on or about July 1. I, for one, will eagerly be watching to see how many texts are actually offered and at what prices.

I'm betting the textbooks are in Topaz format. Why? PDF support is lackluster and Topaz has not been cracked ....yet.

FWIW - my inadvertantly purchased Topaz books display quite well on the DX - I was pleasantly surprised. One even had illustrations that zoom very well. So, depending on how the text/fonts were encoded - they might read OK.

I would have killed for Kindle DX textbooks when I was in college. I can trace the start of my shoulder problems back to those frigging loaded book bags.

Just one more thing for us to be able to tell the youngsters "when I was your age..."

I'm a librarian at a medical school and we've been discussing whether or not medical textbooks were available on the Kindle. We already hand the students a fully loaded laptop and PDA at registration. It would be cool to hand them a Kindle with all their textbooks loaded on it and ready to go.

I would have killed for Kindle DX textbooks when I was in college. I can trace the start of my shoulder problems back to those frigging loaded book bags.

Just one more thing for us to be able to tell the youngsters "when I was your age..."

I can relate. I remember a few semesters I was carrying around in excess of 40 lbs of books every day. I also have some shoulder issues these days. A Kindle DX would have been a godsend those year.

I'm a librarian at a medical school and we've been discussing whether or not medical textbooks were available on the Kindle. We already hand the students a fully loaded laptop and PDA at registration. It would be cool to hand them a Kindle with all their textbooks loaded on it and ready to go.

I can relate. I remember a few semesters I was carrying around in excess of 40 lbs of books every day. I also have some shoulder issues these days. A Kindle DX would have been a godsend those year.
Try carrying Harrison's Textbook of Internal Medicaine and Whatever Surgery Textbook they recommend. Along with Gray's Anatomy and a pathology tome!:p

Engineering textbooks aren't too light, either! I would've loved to have had those texts in electronic form but back in the stone age when I attended college the only computers on campus were the mainframes. The year I graduated one of the other state engineering colleges started requiring incoming freshmen to bring a PC.

I'll be interested to see what the DX textbook store looks like.

I'll be interested to see what the DX textbook store looks like.

I'll be curious to see what the prices look like. I remember paying a hundred dollars or more per book, used, for a few of my textbooks in college. I'd hope electronic distribution would reduce prices to a reasonable range. I can remember one particularly egregious example was a small and thin volume that ran me $180 if memory serves.

I'll be curious to see what the prices look like. I remember paying a hundred dollars or more per book, used, for a few of my textbooks in college. I'd hope electronic distribution would reduce prices to a reasonable range. I can remember one particularly egregious example was a small and thin volume that ran me $180 if memory serves.

Unfortunately, that's highly unlikely to occur. Textbooks are expensive because they are extremely costly to produce (compared to fiction), and have a very restricted market. The printing and distribution costs are negligible compared to that. Electronic distribution might reduce the price of a $100 textbook to $90, but you're never going to see $10 textbooks in fields like medicine.

Unfortunately, that's highly unlikely to occur. Textbooks are expensive because they are extremely costly to produce (compared to fiction), and have a very restricted market. The printing and distribution costs are negligible compared to that. Electronic distribution might reduce the price of a $100 textbook to $90, but you're never going to see $10 textbooks in fields like medicine.

Then there will be (nearly) zero incentive to buy, since one can often sell or trade-in used textbooks for credit or OTOH buy used textbooks.

Unfortunately, that's highly unlikely to occur. Textbooks are expensive because they are extremely costly to produce (compared to fiction)

I do not believe this is true. Most fiction authors seems to spend more time on a book then a text book author. Also text book authors very often write the book as part of their full time academic job.

Text books are expensive because the market is so small.

I meant "expensive for the publisher". Textbooks generally have extremely complex typesetting requirements compared to a novel.

Try carrying Harrison's Textbook of Internal Medicaine and Whatever Surgery Textbook they recommend. Along with Gray's Anatomy and a pathology tome!:p

Harrison's is actually online now as are most of the Lange DX and TX series. MD Consult has a long list of texts online that the students subscribe to for $100 a year. I think the next logical step is textbooks on an e-reader and I don't think the texts will be $10, but I don't think they will be astronomical either.

I think that Harrison's was briefly up for sale but later pulled because of massive formatting problems. It was around $120 if memory serves. I'm still holding out for Kaplan and Sadock's, meself...