Textbooks. 'Ebooks'

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Michigan68, Mar 2, 2015.

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  1. Michigan68

    Michigan68 Active Member

    What is a good company to purchase Ebooks from?

    PDF or ePub.

    I travel quite often and lugging around a 2-lb $120 book in my carry on bag isn't fun anymore. (Actually it was never fun)



    Regards,
    Michael
     
  2. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

    Sarafi Book Online is really good, you can get some token per month to download. Amazon is another one, but you have to purchase it insteas subscription.
     
  3. NYC777MIA

    NYC777MIA member

  4. jhp

    jhp Member

    just be careful with ebooks for courses. You can end up with "full" version where images, charts and other parts are "not licensed" and you get a blank page, or just a place holder where the image supposed to go.
     
  5. GoodYellowDogs

    GoodYellowDogs New Member

    Pdfs are really difficult.
     
  6. jhp

    jhp Member

    This is an other problem. I would love to get a PDF.

    I have not found an ebook provider that gives PDFs. They all use a proprietary application, which has the document within it - no way to extract all the document, and printing, copy/pasting is limited to so much (few paragraphs) within certain time frames. Some even require an Internet connection for DRM.

     
  7. gbrogan

    gbrogan Member

    There is a company called 1 Dollar Scan in California that a friend of mine told me about a couple of years ago. You send them the paper copy of a book, they cut off the spine, scan the book to pdf and put it on a server so you can download it. It costs $1 per 100 pages for the most basic service so a 500 page textbook would be five bucks.

    I've sent them a lot of books over the years and have been pleased. I've never taken any of their additional services; just paid the buck per 100 pages. I think you can pay an extra buck per 100 page set to have the file name be the name of the book but that seriously doubles the price and you can quickly see what book it is and rename the file.

    I'm taking a few courses now and once I finish with them I put the books aside and will send them when I have about 10 books. You have to buy a sacrificial paper copy of a book but it's been well worth it for me. I open them in Acrobat Pro, run OCR on them, export as text and use Calibre to convert to Kindle format so I can read them on my device.
     
  8. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    There are lots of threads on textbooks but I decided to dump this story into this one . . . Amazon to become the new textbook supplier to UMass.

    UMass, Amazon reach deal to sell students textbooks

    written by Associated Press posted: 01/13/2015, 10:29am




    AMHERST, Mass. — Students at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst are expected to save hundreds of dollars a year by buying textbooks from online retailing giant Amazon under a deal announced Tuesday.

    Students will be able to order new, used, rental and digital textbooks and other course materials through Amazon or through the university’s online student information system beginning in May.

    The deal also provides for free one-day shipping of books and course materials to campus and nearby communities.

    This will be Amazon’s first online university store in the Northeast, but its third nationwide. Similar deals have been struck with Purdue University in Indiana and the University of California, Davis.

    “We know students struggle with the high cost of textbooks and other course materials, and they have been moving to online purchasing. We are delighted to help them get the most competitive prices and first-rate service,” said James Sheehan, UMass-Amherst’s vice chancellor of administration and finance.

    Based on College Board estimates, UMass students could save an average of about $380 annually.

    College students have increasingly moved away from traditional textbooks to digital and online books in recent years and the five-year contract between UMass and Amazon is another step in the process.

    UMass’ existing 8,553-square-foot textbook annex will be replaced by a staffed Amazon pick-up location of about 3,000 square feet in the Lincoln Campus Center.

    Amazon estimates it can offer UMass students a savings of 31 percent versus current bookstore prices, or around $1.4 million based on sales of textbooks at the existing UMass Bookstore.

    “For years we’ve offered students low prices on everything from textbooks to electronics to dorm essentials on Amazon.com,” said Paul Ryder, Amazon’s vice president of media and student programs. “We’re excited to team up with UMass to bring a new bookstore experience to campus that saves students money and makes it more convenient to get the course materials and other school supplies they need.”

    Amazon will work with faculty to collect information on required materials.
     
  9. Messdiener

    Messdiener Active Member

    Thanks for this recommendation. I may well keep this company in mind to, uh, reduce my current library size. ;)
     
  10. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I understand why this makes sense, but it still sounds like sacrilege.
     
  11. Messdiener

    Messdiener Active Member

    That it does, Steve! Nevertheless, for those of us living outside of the US, it *may* be a cheaper option than shipping books from Amazon to another continent!
     

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