Quote:
Originally Posted by bill_mchale
Imagine them licensing the books for the semester... the student can use it during his class but can't sell it afterwards and can't even use it later.
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I realize students have come to rely on the ability to make a few books by selling their textbooks after the semester. I consider that an aberration of the current system... it's certainly not something the text publishers want to encourage... but at any rate, as texts migrate from physical to electronic media, this will simply not be an option in the future.
I think it would be a better idea for students to want to keep their texts after the semester is over, for future reference (a much easier task when they are electronic). I still have a number of my old textbooks. But I understand that this doesn't apply to all of the texts you've ever gotten.
Hopefully students will be able to obtain texts for less once they are electronic, but as others have pointed out, the economy of educational texts isn't great, and prices are not likely to come down by much. And reselling is just plain unlikely to happen. So, to those who enjoy buying and selling used texts, I can only say: Enjoy it while you can, those days are probably numbered. (And the way the educational industry is dragging its feet, take solace in the fact that that number is probably large.)