Apple Kills the Textbook with iBooks 2, iBooks Author

[frazzled]

8. Textbook loss, defacement, and damage is already a huge cost for school districts

I used to sit on a committee at a public school that dealt with this. Hard-copy textbooks are very expensive, and don't last that long. Kids lose them, deface them, or they simply wear out in a few years.

Two things will make e-books a better deal for schools:

(1) They can use them for a longer time, without replacement.
(2) Kids are not going to want to treat their iPads (or other tablets) like trash because they're fun and useful for other stuff. Of course there will be loss and damage due to accidents: kids aren't that responsible. But I'm guessing the costs won't be that bad in comparison to textbook loss. Schools can purchase base-level Kindle or other e-readers in bulk for probably very little, and skip the full-fledged tablet route.

I see this as the direction things will go.