The semester is now in full swing, and students have emptied their wallets just to buy their textbooks. While most students spend on average of $200 to $300 on physical books, some may have saved a pretty penny by switching to digital. Now that there has been enough time to settle in with our current course materials, we can analyze whether the cheaper digital alternative really is more convenient.
With e-books really only rising to popularity in the last four years, most students are accustomed to the practical method of sitting down with a heavy book and flipping through the pages to read alongside their professor. Now, students using e-books can simply pull out their tablet and open any of their texts with the push of a button; or, more appropriately, with the touch of a screen.
The clear advantage to this is a decrease in backpack weight and clutter. But e-book users pay the price when it comes time to sell books at the end of the semester. This is a disadvantage that will likely never change, as reselling e-books is not a conventional concept. Even if the right to an e-book could be traded or sold to other students, there is no decrease in value, so why would it cost less for the new buyer? Physical book buyers might pay more on the front end but will always be able to make some of that back come the end of finals.
The counter-argument to the point of reselling books comes in the form of e-book rentals. This is a fairly new feature that is primarily available through Amazon. Just like ordering a physical textbook and sending it back at the end of the semester, digital readers can now rent the license to a textbook for a select amount of time. Students can practically choose their price by telling Amazon just how long they will need access to the digital textbook. As the rental duration increases, so does the price. This way, students can find out when their final test is and set the book access to expire that day. Without the need to send back a rented physical book, there is no need to print out a shipping label and take the book to a local UPS store.
Clearly the advantages and disadvantages to both physical and digital books apply to different students in different ways. For those who do not have a lightweight tablet device, using e-books on a laptop might actually be a disadvantage if the student does not typically take a laptop to class. Relying on and taking expensive devices everywhere is a big risk, even on such a trustworthy campus as KSU. The truth is, through experience, students must decide on their own if e-books are more convenient than classic physical books. Even though digital accessibility grows every day, print will never die.
