Vision and reality in electronic textbooks

BOWLING GREEN, O.—More publishers than ever are pushing colleges and universities away from printed books and into electronic textbooks. But Dr. Byron Brown, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Michigan State University, says today’s e-texts are technologically backwards and overpriced.

Brown will visit Bowling Green State University on Oct. 2 to present “Vision and Reality in Electronic Textbooks: What Publishers Need to Do to Survive.” The event runs from 2-4 p.m. in 206 Bowen-Thompson Student Union. He will discuss his vision for digital learning materials, explain the details of the current state of the textbook market and argue that the current path of the publishing companies will lead them to failure.

Until his retirement earlier this year, Brown was Michigan State’s coordinator of instructional technology support in the Office of Libraries, Computing and Technology. In addition to being the author of three online courses in economics and the developer of online learning materials, he does research in the economics of education.

The event is sponsored by the Office of the CIO and the BGSU Bookstore.