The Textbook Wars May Be about to Heat Up

Here are two corporate news releases distributed by University Business that suggest that Barnes and Noble and Amazon are positioning themselves to compete with each other, in each other’s areas of strength, for increased shares of the still lucrative textbook market. _________________________ Barnes & Noble Education, Inc. (NYSE: BNED), one of the largest contract operators…

A Link to "The Trouble With Textbooks: A Great American Rip-Off"

The following is a link to an article I published about textbooks.  I resolve to do something concrete about this problem, and one part of the solution will be abandoning the practice of using textbooks for certain courses.  I hope others will follow and offer suggestions.  I hope others may already be teaching without “required” textbooks. http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/22/the-trouble-with-textbooks-a-great-american-rip-off/

The Creepy Invasion of Cengage in My Email Inbox

July 3 and I am minding my own business, just checking email before Independence Day, and I have an email from someone named Ashley Minton, Ashley.Minton@cengage.com, with a cc: to someone named Rachael Pigg-Wisner (Wisner) at rachael.wisner@cengage.com. Yes, the sender’s email contains two caps, and the carbon-copied recipient’s email is all lower-case. The email subject…