The cost of textbooks is high and getting higher–a 2005 study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported an increase in the cost of textbooks that was twice the inflation rate– but there’s some relief in sight. The AP reports that textbook rental programs and online-shopping for textbook bargains are replacing the more traditional and [...]
As you probably know, Google has set out to scan all the books published in modern history (not counting copies of course). They used an algorithm to determine just how many books that might be. Here’s how they arrived at the number.
Patrick Kingsley, writing in the Guardian, observes: A literary revolution is at hand. First we had slow food, then slow travel. Now, those campaigns are joined by a slow-reading movement – a disparate bunch of academics and intellectuals who want us to take our time while reading, and re-reading. They ask us to switch off [...]
Leanne Italie at AP reports on some proposed solutions to the problem of boys not reading. The problem: Boys have lagged behind girls in reading achievement for more than 20 years, but the gender gap now exists in nearly every state and has widened to mammoth proportions — as much as 10 percentage points in [...]
There’s much ado about Stanford University’s announcement about its new bookless library. Laura Sydell at National Public Radio (NPR) reports: The periodical shelves at Stanford University’s Engineering Library are nearly bare. Library chief Helen Josephine says that in the past five years, most engineering periodicals have been moved online, making their print versions pretty obsolete [...]