Downloadable Textbooks?! Say it's So!

CourseSmart, an online publishing company owned by five publishers may just be the Limewire and I-tunes of college textbooks. I say this because this online site provides online textbooks for college students to read, download, and print in numerous portions. Not to discredit institutions where professors provide copies of texts and excerpts (i.e E-Reserves at my school). However, this company is taking E-Reserves to the next long overdue level.



Every college student, parent, and those who are just aware of staggering prices knows damn well that the prices of textbooks are astronomical. It is ridiculous that many of us have to pay over $100 for 1 textbook, USED! CourseSmart has been around only for 1 year, however over 1200 institutions have had students who purchased or took advantage of this site. With over 4,000 books available which is 1/3 of the entire market of textbooks, Coursesmart plans to expand to 50%.
There is light at the end of the pitch black tunnel for making textbooks affordable for everyone. Let's just hope that this site can benefit all college students in the near future. With the economy on life support, who can really dish out $100 for a book that will most likely be utilized for a couple of weeks, then left in the custody of dust?

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PS- I love Noam Cohen's analogy of textbooks publishers to drug makers... Delicious Food 4 Thought

-PeAcE