The Kindle must be an accessory to the Snuggie, if one was judging solely on the target markets. But a group of Ivy League schools has made attempts to bring the grayscale reading device to campus - and not just for irony's sake, like some have done with the backwards bathrobe that haunts daytime TV.
The theory is that students will be able to save money if colleges opt to have more textbooks transferred from print or digital into the unifying Kindle format.
It's a novel idea, but it's not likely to happen.
The Kindle - a plastic handheld that comprises a screen with a mini keypad to allow scrolling through pages and downloading books offline - is just not student-friendly. Sure, it can hold up to 1,500 (small) titles, connects to the Internet, and weighs 10.2 ounces. But netbooks - or those spiffy laptops that weigh just a couple of pounds each - often run cheaper, and actually let users perform tasks other than reading.
Kindle is a great device for the elderly, for heavy readers and/or for the technologically incompetent. But college students don't fall into any one of those categories and should not be treated as such.
For one, the Kindle has limited memory and was originally intended to only hold paperback-size books. Second, it lacks almost any graphic capabilities. (Amazon says the new Kindle now boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text.) Third, the savings for many titles available on Kindle are often only a couple dollars from hardcover or paperback versions - which means it could take more than a couple doctorate degrees to even break even on the $359 machine. The list goes on and on, but word limits do not.
As for Kindle's college success rates, Inside Higher Ed reported last summer that the University of California Press had one of its hard-hitting books selling more than a dozen times in a month on Kindle. Results that low can't even be expected when marketing the autobiography of Joe the Plumber.
Aside from this disappointing attempt, the concept of unifying students through an all-out, e-text makeover is well-founded at a time when university presses and students alike are struggling to make ends meet.
In fact, one school has discovered that its students will be able to cut textbook costs by half if it were to go all-digital. Second fact: The average American university is already one-fifth of the way there, as 18 percent of students reportedly subscribe to e-books.
Last Thursday Northwest Missouri State University announced that it is working on becoming the first college in the country to go all-digital. Every student on campus is already provided with a laptop, and Missouri State plans to make e-books mandatory, too.
Although some students and faculty have expressed discontent at giving up that musty book smell for a Web site login page, the savings are inarguable.
But it's possible for Missouri's transition to benefit our school as well, even if Ohio University never does take the earth- and pocket-friendly plunge. Perhaps, when the folks at Missouri State complete their transition, they might ship their leftover books over to Ohio University and our newfound surplus in inventory will lower demand for books and reduce the costs for us students.
That right there is macroeconomics. It is also a byproduct of my own e-book learning, and the best $30 I ever spent.
4 Opinion
Olga Kharitonova
