Slog
News & ArtsMonday, September 24, 2012
Visual Art Y'Okay, Canada?
Posted by Jen Graves on Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 11:45 AM
Apparently they can't even afford art textbooks with pictures in 'em up there. What is North America coming to?
1
I have no idea where to report this so I'm hijacking your excellent post. Lately, when the site is busy (late morning seattle time), clicking on my "Profile" link (in the upper right, where it says "Hey there, beef rallard | Profile | Log Out") takes me to some other random person's profile instead of my own. Your web nerds would probably love to hear about this problem.
2
Not quite the story Jen. IIRC from when this hit the net a couple of weeks ago, the issue was that the publisher apparently claimed they were having problem securing copyright permission for many of the images (which didn't really make sense at the time, since presumably, most of the images would be considered public domain), and so, just decided to publish a new version of their textbook without them. Students rightfully protested the mandatory purchase of a $200 textbook lacking the images, and I believe the school in question, after negotiating with the publisher, agreed to a buyback at 100% of the purchase price, while the publisher in turn was working on restoring the images for the next version. In the meantime, I believe they also agreed to make an older version with the images intact available to students as well.
3
@1 - Oh thank god. I thought it was just me and that I was suffering some kind of dissociative episode.
5
"Ironically, student efforts to defray book costs -- such as buying and selling used -- may have pushed publishers into revising content unnecessarily as a way to hike demand for new editions by forcing quick obsolescence."
Umm, exactly the reverse: over ten years ago, when I was in college, publishers were issuing overpriced "revisions" which professors would insist we had to have, and I would advise other students to go online and buy earlier additions priced down to pennies.
This is fine for liberal arts courses, I got As, because usually the updated editions had minimal changes which didn't justify the price.
But kept the textbook company in profit.
However, with computer manuals, and some science textbooks, that might not be the case.
And with publishers going to digital, well, it may be cheaper to produce, but the publisher certainly isn't passing those savings on to the students.
Who can't buy digital versions "used."
Umm, exactly the reverse: over ten years ago, when I was in college, publishers were issuing overpriced "revisions" which professors would insist we had to have, and I would advise other students to go online and buy earlier additions priced down to pennies.
This is fine for liberal arts courses, I got As, because usually the updated editions had minimal changes which didn't justify the price.
But kept the textbook company in profit.
However, with computer manuals, and some science textbooks, that might not be the case.
And with publishers going to digital, well, it may be cheaper to produce, but the publisher certainly isn't passing those savings on to the students.
Who can't buy digital versions "used."
6
New Gardners Art for the Ages was like $250.00
I bought the previous version on amazon for $30.00 which was then stolen by a student I was being nice to and loaning it to.
I realize this has nothing to do with the story other than my own bitterness about textbooks.
I bought the previous version on amazon for $30.00 which was then stolen by a student I was being nice to and loaning it to.
I realize this has nothing to do with the story other than my own bitterness about textbooks.
8
@5 Back when I was in school (late 80s) textbooks were still expensive but reasonable enough that most students didn't think too much about it and each bought their own copy. Then publishers got greedy and started raising prices, and students more and more often shared textbooks and bought them used, which caused publishers to spend more to create new editions more often, driving up costs and prices even more, leading students to find other ways to avoid paying, etc, and so ironically publishers make less now in a high-priced textbook world then they did when the prices were lower.
9
@7,4,3,1: Next time it happens stick a bunch of pictures of penises in the other person's profile. If it's hilarious on Wikipedia, it's hilarious on Slog too, yes?
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