Textbooks: A Market Begging for Change
15th June 2009
Joe Wikert is always worth reading.
Adoption of the textbook was the last really major change in the education process, being a major improvement over a master at the front of the class reciting information and the students vainly attempting to write it all down — and that, of course, was a function of the lack of technology for disseminating information quickly and inexpensively. Once printing came along: Problem solved, let’s pump up the information flows. (The introduction of home appliances to replace servants had a similar impact.)
The problem here isn’t that the customers are not willing to try new alternatives to the tired old textbook. No, the real problem is with the system itself. Publishers, schools, authors (which oftentimes means “professors”) and campus bookstores all have plenty at stake and have enjoyed the current model for far too long. It’s yet another case of The Innovator’s Dilemma. You’d think it would be an excellent opportunity for an upstart to come in and completely obliterate the system, sort of like what Craigslist did to the newspaper industry.
Speed the day.