digital textbooks

The digital publishing revolution is so old that a great many reading consumers might not be able to envision a time when they couldn’t simply pop online to order a book, download a new title from their favorite author, or use an app or PDF for supplemental book material. eBooks and digital publishing have simply become a part of everyday life for many people. But there’s one branch of the publishing family tree that has still not caught up with the times: educational publishing. Nearly every facet of education has been left in the dust when it comes to access, price, and readily available updates to texts. When this digital publishing took off in a major way, educational publishers were supposedly going to insert e-textbooks into every classroom from preschool through grad school. What’s the holdup? There are a lot of factors stopping the widespread switch to files instead of paper, but that’s only one factor in educational publishing. The other is the way new concepts are discovered, researched, and published to begin with. Scientific research is carefully horded by academic publishers, keeping anyone without deep pockets from accessing the findings. What’s even more concerning is that many research projects are funded by the taxpayers before going straight to the publisher’s paywall.