Evaluating California’s Digital Textbook Initiative

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced a digital textbook initiative that intends to make available "free" electronic textbooks for high school math and science classes by fall 2009. There are many implications and unanswered questions about the initiative, but it does signal a movement by the largest state in the U.S.A. to incorporate digital textbooks. Learn more about this and other digital textbook initiatives.

Digital Textbooks Present Many Challenges
While many details about the California program were not revealed as of this printing, much smaller-scale digital initiatives have been launched with varying degrees of success.

According to a June 2009 article by Jeffrey R. Lang, "6 Lessons One Campus Leaned About E-Textbooks," and published in The Chronice of Higher Education, Northwest Missouri State University conducted a digital textbook pilot program. It incorporated the Sony Reader with 240 students and books published by McGraw-Hill.

The pilot revealed a number of challenges from battery-life issues to dealing with a myriad of e-book applications. At the end of March during the school year, nearly 40 percent of the participants agreed in a survey, "I study less because the e-textbook makes studying more difficult."

These types of early results notwithstanding, the California initiative highlights a growing movement toward digitally based publishing, which we believe very much includes digitally printed books and other classroom materials. We encourage all of our educational book publishing colleagues to use this opportunity to examine how the combination of offset print, digital print and other digital technologies fits your market and publishing programs.

If you need support in responding to this growing movement, please contact us today.

We also invite you to download a complimentary copy of our white paper, The Impact of Digital Printing Technologies on Educational Book Publishing. This valuable document addresses the important trends driving the adoption of digital printing alternatives and examines the growing educational market applications for digital print.