For some freshmen this fall, textbooks will take a new, electronic form: the Kindle DX.
The Kindle DX, a wireless electronic reading device from Amazon, will be used in a pilot group study in Ted Humphrey’s honor course, The Human Event, open to incoming honor’s freshmen.
“I suggested that we attempt Kindle-based courses,” Humphrey said.
A president’s professor in Barrett, the Honors College, Humphrey proposed the use of the Kindle for reduced textbook costs and paper consumption.
“I figured that with a Kindle at somewhere between $175 to $250, students could buy the Kindle and all my books for under $400,” Humphrey said.
He said his course uses around 50 texts, and they usually cost more than $400 for two semesters of texts. The costs will probably be closer to $500 without the Kindle, he said.
He added that he thinks most of the students will enjoy using the Kindle, since his roster appeared to fill up as soon as it was announced the device would be used in his class.
“I immediately fell in love with the Kindle and the Kindle reading experience,” Humphrey said.
Faculty members also appear to be interested in using the electronic reader in the classroom.
“I had other faculty members be in touch with me to say that they would really like to use the Kindle in their classes,” Humphrey said.
He said he is not sure whether there will be a discount for students or if they’ll have to buy the Kindle online.
“I had really hoped that Amazon and other providers would have a discount [for students],” he said.
Other universities will be also use the Kindle in the pilot program, including Princeton University, Case Western Reserve University, Reed College and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.
Kari Barlow, assistant vice president for the University Technology Office, has talked to Amazon about the Kindle pilot program.
She said it is uncertain what the costs will be for the device.
“For the pilot, we’re still working on what the final bill will be to Amazon,” she said.
Even if the Kindle were at its regular cost, Barlow said that “the Kindle will pay for itself within a year.”
On Amazon.com, the Kindle DX is currently $489 for a pre-order. The older model is available on Amazon.com for $359.
Barlow said students will not be required to buy the Kindle, but the details still have to be worked out.
“The goal is to offer the Kindle to the whole ASU community,” she said.
Barlow said currently there are not a lot of textbooks available on Kindle, but there are some.
“Amazon just established partnerships with three major publishers,” she said.
She said she thinks the device is one of many alternatives for cheaper textbooks.
“We’re hoping that there’s a large adoption of Kindle textbooks,” she said.
One negative is that some charts and graphs might not be viewed properly with the Kindle.
“If they require color, it’s a black and white device,” Barlow said.
Although the Kindle has room for improvement in terms of displaying textbooks, one student believes it could have some use.
Garrett Stokan, a political science senior, said in an e-mail that with some advancements, the Kindle can be useful to students.
“I think it is a good idea, but only if every book in the bookstore is available to it. I know this is currently not the case,” Stokan said. “Therefore, the $300 for the one class that it’s used for isn’t really worth it.”
He said he thinks eventually the reduced cost of textbooks could be appealing, as well as not having to carry around books.
“It will be great not to have to lug around textbooks everywhere and have one item that has all my reading material stored in it and doesn’t gain weight with every book,” Stokan said.
“Eventually, I can see it becoming a technological explosion, somewhat like the iPod did, in the sense that you just download books for a fraction of the cost,” he said.
Reach the reporter at
reweaver@asu.edu
