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For other uses, see Textbook (disambiguation).
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Two textbooks.
A textbook is a manual of instruction or a standard book in any branch of study. They are produced according to the demand of educational institutions. Although most textbooks are only published in printed format, some can now be viewed online.
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Texts specifically designated for educational purposes were written in ancient Greece. Formulary, collections of models for official writings, were widely used in Europe in the middle ages. The modern textbook has its roots in the standardization made possible by the printing press. Johann Gutenberg himself may have printed editions of Ars Minor, a schoolbook on Latin grammar by Aelius Donatus. Early textbooks were used by tutors, teachers, who used the books as instructional aids (e.g. alphabet books) and individuals involved in autodidacticism.
Compulsory education and the subsequent growth of schooling in Europe lead to the printing of many standardized texts for children. Textbooks have become the primary teaching instrument for most children since the 19th century. Two textbooks of historical significance in United States schooling were the 18th century New England Primer and the 19th century McGuffey Readers.
As of 2007, the five largest college textbook publishers in the United States are: Pearson, Cengage Learning, McGraw-Hill, Houghton-Mifflin and Harcourt General (a division of Reed Elsevier).[citation needed] In addition, other large publishers include EMC Paradigm, Wiley, Jones and Bartlett, F. A. Davis, and others.[citation needed]
As with many media products, a market for used textbooks exists. The goal of such trade is to acquire textbooks for less money than the price of new copies or to sell unneeded books to recoup some or all of their purchase price.
The bookstore selling the textbooks often also buys them back after use, but for a lower price. Furthermore, there are many companies specialized on only buying and selling used textbooks.
Students also tend to sell textbooks amongst themselves. After completing a course, sellers will often seek out members of the next enrolling class, people who are likely to be interested in purchasing the required books. This may be done by posting flyers to advertise the sale of the books or simply soliciting individuals who are shopping in the college bookstore for the same titles. Many larger schools have independent websites set up for the purpose of facilitating such trade. These often operate much like digital classified ads, allowing students to list their items for sale and browse for those they wish to acquire.
Used textbooks are also sold on a national and even global scale through online merchant and auction websites which allow shoppers to search many major new and used book sellers at a time for specific titles. Such services can usually locate books based on their title, ISBN or UPC. Sometimes professors choose to bundle their textbooks (package them with multiple components supplied by the publisher or the college), but not all components may be available online. Students also may have access to purchasing annotated teacher\'s editions online, which if they use at school, may constitute cheating. International copies could also pose a risk for shopping online, as some books are different from their domestic counterparts.
In most K-12 public schools, a local school board votes on which textbooks to purchase from a selection of books that have been approved by the state Department of Education. Teachers receive the books to give to the students for each subject. Teachers are usually not required to use textbooks, however, and many prefer to use other materials instead. Textbook publishing in the U.S. is a business primarily aimed at large states, especially California and Texas. This is due to state purchasing controls over the books. The Texas State Board of Education spends in excess of $600 million annually on its central purchasing of textbooks.
In U.S. institutions of higher education, textbooks are chosen by the professor teaching the course, or by the department as a whole. Students buy their own copies of their books.
Many mathematics textbooks aligned with reform mathematics have been introduced with the goal of improving understanding, and insuring the success of all students. There has been a controversy covered in newspapers and websites that such textbooks either do not teach basic arithmetic, do so poorly compared to traditional methods, or dismissed as "rainforest" math due to padding non-mathematical material. Editions of TERC and Mathland largely omit standard methods of elementary arithmetic. Some do not have textbooks that students can take home. Some are split up into several books, with editions for the teacher and letters to parents. Some textbooks omit descriptions of the methods that students are expected to derive from teacher-led investigations. For example, Connected Mathematics does not contain the standard formula for the area of a circle, or any complete method to add or multiply fractions in the student edition. Currently such textbooks remain widely adopted by US school districts, despite protests from parents and other concerned citizens.
In recent years, high school textbooks of United States history have come under increasing criticism. Authors such as Howard Zinn (A People\'s History of the United States), Gilbert Sewall (Textbook Publishing), and James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me) make the claim that U.S. History textbooks contain mythical untruths and omissions, which paint a whitewashed picture that bears little resemblance to what most students learn in universities. Inaccurately retelling history, through textbooks or other literature, has been practiced in many societies, from ancient Rome to the Soviet Union. History textbooks are not subjected to review by professional academics, nor can authorship of a high school textbook be used to advance an academic toward tenure at a university.[citation needed] The content of history textbooks thus lies entirely outside the academic forum of fact and social science and is instead determined by the political forces of state adoption boards and ideological pressure groups.
Science textbooks have been the source of ongoing debates and have come under scrutiny from several organizations. The presentation or inclusion of controversial scientific material has been debated in several court cases. Poorly designed textbooks have been cited as contributing to declining grades in mathematics and science in the United States and organizations such as the AAAS have criticized the layout, presentation, and amount of material given in textbooks.
Discussions of textbooks have been included in the Creation and evolution in public education debate. The Smith v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County brought forward a debate about secular humanist values being presented in textbooks.
In his popular book Surely You\'re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, the late physics Nobel Prize laureate Richard P. Feynman described his devastating experiences as he once sat in a commission that evaluated science textbooks. At some instances, there were nonsensical examples to illustrate physical phenomena; then a company sent — for reasons of timing — a textbook that contained blank pages, which even got good critiques. Feynman himself experienced veritable attempts of bribery.
Many university students complain of unreasonably high textbook costs. Since the 1980s, textbook prices have risen much more rapidly than the overall rate of inflation although in line with other education expenses [1].
According to the National Association of College Stores, typically 12% of the price of a new book goes to the author\'s royalties, 23% goes to the store, 32% pays for the publisher\'s paper, printing, binding, and editorial costs, and another 32% is taken by the publisher to cover substantial expenses such as marketing and administration, with the remainder going to company profits.[citation needed] Bookstores and used-book vendors profit from the resale of textbooks on the used market, with publishers only earning profits on sales of new textbooks.
According to a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) study[2] published July 2005:
College textbook prices have risen at twice the rate of annual inflation over the last two decades, following close behind annual increases in tuition and fees at postsecondary institutions. Rising at an average of 6 percent each year since academic year 1987-1988, compared with overall average price increases of 3 percent per year, college textbook prices trailed tuition and fee increases, which averaged 7 percent per year. Since December of 1986, textbook prices have nearly tripled, increasing by 186 percent, while tuition and fees increased by 240 percent and overall prices grew by 72 percent. While increases in textbook prices have followed increases in tuition and fees, the cost of textbooks and supplies for degree-seeking students as a percentage of tuition and fees varies by the type of institution attended. For example, the average estimated cost of books and supplies per first-time, full-time student for academic year 2003-2004 was $898 at 4-year public institutions, or about 26 percent of the cost of tuition and fees. At 2-year public institutions, where low-income students are more likely to pursue a degree program and tuition and fees are lower, the average estimated cost of books and supplies per first-time, full-time student was $886 in academic year 2003-2004, representing almost three-quarters of the cost of tuition and fees.
According to the 2nd edition of a study[3] by the United States Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) published in February 2005:
Textbook prices are increasing at more than four times the inflation rate for all finished goods, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Producer Price Index. The wholesale prices charged by textbook publishers have jumped 62 percent since 1994, while prices charged for all finished goods increased only 14 percent. Similarly, the prices charged by publishers for general books increased just 19 percent during the same time period.
Similar to the issue of re-importation of pharmaceuticals into the US market, the GAO report[4] also highlights a similar phenomenon in textbook distribution:
Retailers and publishers have expressed concern about the reimportation of lower-priced textbooks from international locations.
Specifically, they cited the ability students have to purchase books from online distribution channels outside the United States at lower prices, which may result in a loss of sales for U.S. retailers. Additionally, the availability of lower-priced textbooks through these channels has heightened distrust and frustration among students regarding textbook prices, and college stores find it difficult to explain why their textbook prices are higher, according to the National Association of College Stores. Retailers and publishers have also been concerned that some U.S. retailers may have engaged in reimportation on a large scale by ordering textbooks for entire courses at lower prices from international distribution channels. Concerned about the effects of differential pricing on college stores, the National Association of College Stores has called on publishers to stop the practice of selling textbooks at lower prices outside the United States.
Publishers told us that they intend for the textbooks they distribute in other countries to be sold for use in those countries, not for resale to the United States, and so have taken recent actions to limit large-scale reimportation. Most of the publishers with whom we spoke say they are particularly concerned about the actions of foreign distributors and U.S. retailers that may result in large-scale reimportation of textbooks. As a result, publishers told us they have taken recent steps to limit the reimportation of textbooks in large quantities. Specifically, publishers told us that they have strengthened their agreements with foreign wholesalers to prevent the large-scale sale of U.S. textbooks back to the United States. Some publishers also said they have made an agreement with an online retailer outside the United States to limit the number of copies of a given textbook that can be delivered to a single U.S. address in one order. Because these measures target large-scale reimportation of U.S. textbooks Publishers Have Taken Recent Steps to Limit the Reentry of Their Textbooks into the U.S. from international sources at lower prices, they will not prevent U.S. students from purchasing single copies of textbooks from international sources.
Most college bookstores allow students to sell their textbooks back to the store. This price is typically 50% of the original price if the book is going to be re-used at the same college. Some bookstores offer more than the 50%, and apply that pricing to books in new or used condition. The books that are not being re-used typically yield zero to thirty percent of the new price. These wholesale prices are set by national used textbook companies and are based upon an economic model which predicts national sales of the books and compares them to inventory levels. Different companies set different prices.
An example of a book being purchased for a national used book company follows. First, the student sells the book back (at their college bookstore) to a national used book company, who generally runs the buybacks at college bookstores, where they buy books on behalf of the college and also for their national company. Reps from the used book company send the books they purchase from students back to the main processing center, where the books are then sold to another college bookstore. Finally, that book is sold as used to a student at another college at a price that is typically 75% of the new book price. At each step a margin is applied to the book to enable the respective companies to continue to operate. In addition, many used textbook companies buy review copies from professors at low cost and re-sell them to students as new books at full price, with the publisher receiving none of the income but still incurring the expense of publishing, printing, and shipping.
Most leading textbooks publish a new edition every 3 or 4 years. If they did not, resales of used textbooks would soon dominate the market. [5]
In response to escalating textbook prices, limited competition, and to provide a more efficient system to connect buyers and sellers together, online textbook exchanges were developed. Most of today\'s sites handle buyer and seller payments, and usually deduct a small commission only after the sale is completed. In recent years, several online companies have emerged to rent textbooks to student.
Another group of textbook exchange programs are generally free and only provide publicity for student-posted books. This type of websites is generally ad-monetized. Example: [6]
In grundskolan (basic school), the Swedish equivalent of K-12, textbooks are paid for by the school system.
In institutions of higher education, students pay for textbooks themselves, although higher education in Sweden is free of charge otherwise.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia
