<p>I teach math at a public university, I can tell you the difference between the consecutive editions of math books. They are almost identical except that they might change the orders of the contents which is no big deal, because in math they can not change the order of the contents dramatically, otherwise they must create a totally new theory. We use the 8th edition of a calculus and I compared it with 4th edition which is about 12 years old. They were no major differences in contents (of course they should not), the only inconvenience for students could be the exercise problems, because they might have different orders, you might do the wrong problems. Other than that I could not see any problems. I always tell my students, they can use any edition of the book, but it is their responsibility to check if they are doing the right homework problems. A new 8th edition of the calculus book costs about $180 and the 7th is about $20 if you purchase it from Amazon or ebay.</p>
<p>I just watched the video at the bottom of this link about the future of the IPad and e-textbooks. It is somewhat intriguing.</p>
<p>[What</a> the iPad Means for Textbooks, Maybe | BU Today](<a href=“http://www.bu.edu/today/2010/01/28/what-ipad-means-textbooks-maybe]What”>http://www.bu.edu/today/2010/01/28/what-ipad-means-textbooks-maybe)</p>
<p>**toblin: **I’d like to see where you got your data. Nothing like that happening at my school.</p>
<p>We also adhere to a code of ethics that severely limits our ability to assign any book or other item from which we stand to profit.</p>
<p>^^Interesting article. I do think that the publishing industry is changing rapidly right now–and I think it’s crazy for a professor to change the edition part way in to the semester. If students want to do a little checking before the semester starts, they can check publisher sites to see whether an e-book is available. A Google search with as little as the name of the book, the author, and the edition, can turn up a companion Web site and what other things are available with the text (study guides, etc.). A major disadvantage for all things electronic is that they often have an expiration date, so if a student needs to re-take a class or wants to consult the book later in the college process, it may or may not be available.</p>
<p>Stradmom–At the community college where I teach, we use one of our colleagues books and have for more than ten years. I wish we had an ethics policy.</p>
<p>College bookstores often won’t buy back older editions of textbooks if newer ones are available. So even though buy back prices are usually pathetic, some profs think they’re doing kids a “favor” by having them get the newer edition, because then they can sell it back. Other profs prefer to keep using the older edition as long as possible, becuase it’s cheaper on the front end. Either way, they shouldn’t announce a change in the edition of the MAJOR text at the beginning of the year. </p>
<p>Your kid should ask the prof if he can use the seventh, and even if the prof says no, your kid should keep using the 7th edition and then when he needs to get exercises (probably the only difference is that hte pictures and some of the exercises are different) he can copy them from a classmates book. </p>
<p>I once had a prof who had us buy textbooks (all paperback used poli sci books, so not that expensive) but then with student input he restructured the whole class a few weeks in and didn’t end up using any of the purchased texts. He replaced them however with scanned in copies of other texts made available free to the class online so we didn’t have to buy new books.</p>
<p>OP here. I don’t know if S has bought the new books yet, but he thinks he’s the only one who didn’t buy from the bookstore originally. I don’t know if he’ll try to talk to the prof. </p>
<p>It’s an intensive 6 credit class meeting 5 days a week, with lots of homework every night, so cross-checking every assignment with the newer edition would be more of a hassle than just sucking it up and buying the new books. :(</p>
<p>As far as cross checking, he can sit down with both books once and check the assignments. Often, a new text has one new chapter or something else fairly minor. It’s worth a look.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>the history doesn’t change… only what people write about it changes (which may or may not be for the better). All the major works and major artists in art history can be studied fine with 50 year old information. I wouldn’t complain if they made a new edition every 10/15 years, but every 2/3 years is just ridiculous.</p>
<p>I have never heard of those authors. I googled them to make sure. I don’t think I read a single literary novel in college. I definitely didn’t take any classes in the English department.</p>
<p>I don’t see anything wrong with what the mentioned professor or any other professor I have had did in regards to books. It’s not their job to worry about whether their students will be able to pay for books. Books and learning are the reason you’re sending your child to college and you want them to have the best resources available right? You’re already spending thousands of dollars in tuition, people should be able to afford books. I think everyone is making it into a much bigger deal than it is. I know people who spend $1000 on books every semester and the book store probably gives them back about $5 when they sell them back, but its all part of the process. No need to complain or blame anyone.</p>
<p>The state of Florida requires the professors (at state schools) to announce books 30 days before class starts. It has really annoyed some of the Florida professors, but the students love it.</p>
<p>soccerguy, the point was that in 1960 they were considered major American authors, and today not so much. If you were W&M '58, you might well have read them in high school, and you would certainly have heard of them even if you never took a class in the English Department. On the other hand, your 1960 American lit textbook might not even have mentioned people like Zora Neale Hurston, William Gaddis, or Hubert Selby, Jr., all of whom are pre-1960 authors who are very influential today.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I agree with you that you don’t need a new edition of a textbook on art history or literary history every 3 years, or even every 10. I was only arguing with your “never”.</p>
<p>OP, can your son ask if the professor will put a copy of the new edition on reserve at the library? In most of my classes that require actual textbooks (and not just coursepacks), professors put a copy or two of the textbook on reserve. It still won’t be as convenient as owning the book, but he might be able to avoid buying it and can just use the reserve copy to do homework while using the 7th for reading. It’s really bizarre that the 8th edition would show up in the bookstore after the semester has already started, especially since another edition had already been ordered. I have no idea how university bookstores work, but I’m surprised the school’s bookstore even agreed to order two editions of the same text. </p>
<p>A similar thing happened to me this semester, though it wasn’t as bad. My professor had posted a syllabus for my class several months in advance, and the syllabus seemed pretty complete with the publisher info for all the texts used, the grade breakdowns, and weekly reading schedule. I bought all the books on Amazon about a week and a half before the start of the semester to allow time for the books to arrive at school. About five days before the first day of class, my professor re-posted the syllabus, and he had changed the publishing company for almost all the texts. The class is an English lit class, so the publisher doesn’t really matter, but I was still annoyed because the pagination for the copies I ordered was completely off. I guess it just never occurred to my professor that people would buy books early. I just wish he’d given some indication on the original syllabus that he hadn’t yet made up his mind about the proper version of the texts.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If you know that you can cudgel at least some students into buying it, there’s no reason not to.</p>
<p>Regarding the Apple issue- the point is some people will NOT buy Apple products but would buy a competitor’s version- for an etextbook to be a viable concept there has to be more than an Apple product available to view it in an equivalent manner. Remember Sony and Betamax (slightly different issue, but same monopoly concept)?</p>
<p>Math textbooks. Son’s for an Honors calculus sequence was copyrighted in the late 1960’s and still each (of two) volumes cost over $100. I paid $13 (had pencilled in price) for my 3 semester use calculus textbook used by one of the authors in the early 1970’s. I can’t easily understand my old textbook after so many decades away from the math, I recall it was best for the first two semesters when the author taught the sequence.</p>
<p>The importance of the total information in many textbooks is the authors’ interpretations of timeless information and what is included/eliminated. Tom Sawyer is Tom Sawyer, but there may be added notes that enhance the interpretation in the edition used, for example.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I wouldn’t have had a problem if the 8th edition had been assigned in the first place. What I object to is assigning the 7th edition, adding additional 7th edition books after the semester has started, and then two weeks later announcing that everyone must buy the 8th edition books instead.</p>
<p>Let me guess–your parents are paying for your books?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Are these Apostol’s books? I found one in our company library back in the early 1990s and asked the owner if I could have it. He was an english major and said that I could have it. I bought Volume II for $10 or $20 in the early 1990s. I was pretty shocked a few years later when I looked at the price for the book and the used prices. Same book but I guess it’s now a classic.</p>
<p>I have a calculus textbook from the 1940s and I think that the price was about $2. I’ve used it from time to time to show the kids something related to calculus. It covers two semesters of calculus, shows proofs and requires them to be done in the exercises and would make a fine book for a modern course except for applications.</p>
<p>One of the MIT OCW professors has a calculus textbook for Calc I-III online. You can download the whole thing or download it in pieces. I think that you can purchase the book too. I wonder why schools don’t use that free text.</p>
<p>@LasMa – I too love the look of my books lined up on my shelf, and prize and treasure each title, even my books from childhood I have packed up in boxes in my parents attic, awaiting the day when I can bring them to my new home. I worked in a bookstore all through high school and college and love the feel, smell, and experience of reading books. </p>
<p>HOWEVER, I also travel a lot for my work, and I no longer live near a quality bookstore or even a good library. I like to read on the subway on my way to and from the office, and I like to have access to a wide variety of books. This is what makes Kindle so awesome to me, and why I am totally wedded to my Kindle. I usually have 3-5 books going at once and I can carry them easily and switch between them whenever I feel like it, and instantly receive almost any title I want at my choosing. </p>
<p>I don’t think it has to be an either or situation. You can love the portability of e-book readers but still enjoy the simple pleasures of reading a printed page. I don’t plan to give up on real books, but I don’t plan to give up my e-book reader either.</p>
<p>I was a college prof for many years and in almost every instance there is little if any significant difference between textbook editions. If my students had older editions of assigned texts I would let them check my edition to make sure they had the correct text question sets if they had been assigned. Sometimes new editions had different text formating, graphics, example problems, etc. These differences never made an iota of difference in learning/understanding the material.</p>
<p>Our son used this knowledge to save $100’s by buying older editions on line. He sometimes even borrowed assigned books from the university library, particularly in his philosophy courses which never used textbooks. He often was assigned 4-8 books by various philosophers, many which were in the library. Those he had to buy he purchased he bought used on line for typically less than $10.</p>
<p>I don’t think he ever spent more than $75 for books in any one semester. The exception being if he was assigned a new 1st edition text. I don’t know if that ever happened however.</p>
<p>The thing that I hate is ‘custom books’. One of my books this semester was ‘custom made’ for my school…which basically means it’s the same exact book, but they took out some stuff my school doesn’t cover, it’s a soft cover, and it’s wrapped in plastic. Since it’s wrapped in plastic we can’t even sell it back, and it was really expensive. On the bookstore website, the only description was that it was a custom package, so I couldn’t have ordered it online ahead of time.</p>
<p>Another of my professors ordered a version that was just pages - no covers, you had to get a binder to get in, but it’s “cheaper” that way. Yeah maybe it’s cheaper, but we’re not allowed to sell that back either.</p>
<p>And don’t get me started on “course packets”…we pay big bucks to buy a bunch of photo copied articles…not even stapled or bound together, just a bunch of pages covered in plastic wrap (yup, so you can’t sell it back!). Ugh.</p>
<p>As a college professor, I find it BIZARRE that a student’s parents would be involved in his purchase of the textbooks. That’s simply WAY too much parental involvement. He should have been the one to purchase the textbooks, at the bookstore or online, and should have received themself at his address. Then, he should decide what to do in this situation. </p>
<p>If your son is old enough to go to college, he’s old enough to solve this problem himself. And if a student’s MOTHER got involved in a situation regarding a student’s textbooks where she called the college and went “up the chain of command” to complain, she’d probably achieve legendary status around these parts. It sounds like you need to realize that Junior isn’t in junior high OR high school and that it’s no longer appropriate for you to complain about his “teacher”.</p>