Amazon marketing executives must have been over the moonafter Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s announced his state’s first-in-the nation project which will replace traditional paper textbooks using free online digital textbooks. This is not some vision of the future, the initiative is scheduled to commence in August of 2009. Science and Math texts will be replaced in the first phase, other subjects will follow.
An initial list of standards aligned digital textbooks covering subjects such as geometry, trigonometry, calculus, physics, algebra, chemistry, biology and earth science course will be released in August. A number of digital books are already going through the review procedure. Academic publishers have been invited to submit further textbooks for consideration by the California Learning Resources network. The deadline for submission is June 15 to allow for review in time for the upcoming academic year starting in August 2009.
The second phase of the initiative, presently in development, will make the new digital textbooks available for all grades. Interactive content will be developed and a web site showcasing books available in the state will be the long term goal.
The initiative could potentially save Californian schools millions of dollars. It’s estimated that a school district with around 10,000 high school students could save $2 million dollars by using free downloadable textbooks in just science and math classes. In 2008, the State of California spent $350 million on textbooks and other printed learning material. The adoption of digital textbooks will allow a significant portion of this money to be diverted for use in other areas.
Another advantage envisaged is that, because digital textbooks are more easily updated, it will be easier for students to learn about technological advances and current discoveries as they happen. Conventional paper textbooks tend to be updated, on average, every six years – which could mean that, at the back end of the cycle, students could be missing six years of information.
It also seems probable that alternative, interactive learning possibilities could be introduced once the scheme is up and running.
Now, it’s probably worth noting that at no point in his announcement did Governor Schwarzenegger make any mention of Amazon’s ebook reader – or any of its competitors for that matter. He clearly stated that it schools would be able to economise even without computers or notebooks as teachers could print out the material and that this would still work out significantly cheaper than using standard paper textbooks. So why is this good news for Amazon?
Well, the latest addition to the Amazon Kindle ebook reader family, the Kindle DX, launched on June 10 – just five days after Governor Schwarzenegger’s announcement. It’s a bigger version of Amazon’s Kindle 2 , released in February 2009, having a 9.7” display instead of a 6” one. Amazon have marketed it as being ideal for reading magazines, newspapers and – that’s right – academic textbooks.
Amazon have already entered into agreements with at least three academic publishers and some higher education establishments have publicly announced that they make the Kindle available to their students. At this time it does seem that Amazon are better able to take advantage of the sudden introduction of new digital technology in the academic world than their competition.
That’s not to say that they will have things all their own way of course. Google have partnered with Sony to make Google’s vast library of public domain ebooks available to Sony’s PRS ebook reader users, a clear indication that neither Google or Sony are prepared to give up the potentially huge and highly profitable ebook. Other competitors also exist and it will be interesting to see how they respond to developments in the market in general and the academic sector in particular.
In the meantime, it does seem as if Governor Schwarzenegger’s innovative plan for California’s educational future is likely to boost sales of Amazon’s reader, Kindle accessories and books from Amazon’s Kindle store. No doubt other states will consider similar schemes and the academic sector of the book market could hot up very quickly indeed. Certainly, the academic textbook sector is only one market segment – but it does seem to be leading the way. Moreover, it presents Amazon and its competitors with an ideal opportunity to “get ‘em while they’re young” and establish the type of brand recognition and loyalty which will almost certainly influence buying decisions in later life.
