Electronic Books Allowed at Fontbonne, Washington University

Although college textbooks aren’t yet available in Apple's iBook form, electronic books are being used by many St. Louis-area universities—but most aren't required.

Elizabeth Hise Brennan, ’s senior communications and marketing coordinator, said that she knows students on campus use e-readers, but there’s no actual policy on it.

She said she checked with the school’s office of Academic Affairs, and the school does allow the use of e-books.

“At this time, however, Joyce Johnson, who is our associate dean of academic affairs, is unaware of any instructors who actually require them,” Brennan said. “Also, our library has a few different types of e-readers that the university community can check out and try.”

helps its students save money through a Rent-A-Text program it launched in 2010. And while its campus store does offer digital textbooks and various hardware (including an extended warranty for the iPad, but not an actual iPad), the school has no policy in place that requires the use of e-books or digital textbooks. Like most universities in the area, e-books are optional.

The school’s library also offers a selection of e-books as well as a comprehensive list of other places to find e-books.

Tablet paves way for electronic textbooks
Apple’s iPads have been a hot topic of discussion among students, teachers, bloggers and tech columnists in the past couple of weeks thanks to the company’s January announcement that it had released a new, interactive digital textbook to the market.

iBooks 2 for iPad is “an entirely new kind of textbook that’s dynamic, engaging and truly interactive,” Apple stated in a Jan. 19 news release. The new iBooks offer fullscreen text books, complete with “interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos, unrivaled navigation and much more.”

The books weigh less than their print counterparts and can be kept up to date. But they might also enable teachers to create custom books and study guides for their classes with the iBooks Author tool. Apple stated that anyone with a Mac can use the program to create their own iBooks textbooks—it’s a free download in the App Store.

“With 1.5 million iPads already in use in education institutions, including over 1,000 one-to-one deployments, iPad is rapidly being adopted by schools across the U.S. and around the world,” stated Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, in the release. “Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn, using the device they already love.”

Three days later, the Huffington Post reported that Apple was selling a special version of the iPad for high schools, which would come pre-loaded with certain popular electronic textbooks, including biology and environmental science from Pearson and Algebra 1 and chemistry from McGraw-Hill, all of which contain interactive elements, including video.

Though the idea of text books that will cost just $15 or less sounds very appealing, the cheapest iPads retail around $500, and Apple didn’t offer a plan for defraying costs for students.

And while Apple reported an explosion of text book sales that weekend, according to MSN Money, critics are questioning the viability of the venture—especially since iBooks can only be used on iPads.

Future of iBooks at colleges and universities is unclear
While the current model is directed at high school students, many wonder how much college text books will cost if and when they’re released. MSN reports that rumors suggest Apple will charge $75 for “the equivalent of a $200 textbook.”

While those numbers can add up to a significant savings, they aren't quite as dramatic as the amount of savings high school pricing model could produce.

MSN reporters Louis Bedigian and Benzinga write that a more realistic model would mean pricing textbooks at $40 to $60 at launch, and then to increase the price by a small amount every other semester.

“Apple would attempt to justify the increase by pointing to the interactive features, among other exclusive elements,” they write. “But with or without an excuse, most students would not complain about a $5 increase every six months.”