Quote Originally Posted by adrianh View Post
IanF - You know - My eldest daughter is doing a BA in English Literature so my house is filled with books (real ones with dog ear pages)

The problem with textbooks are as follows:
1. They are very very heavy (my girls used to lug a very very bag around every day)
2. They are expensive
3. The money making buggers revise them every year so as to sell you a new version for no other reason than making money. Math hasn't changed in 100 years yet every year you have to buy a new textbook.

University is even worse - R4,000 for books per year that go to a landfill because the publishers are in cahoots with the education institutions. Varsity College is a case in point - they must make a fortune in kickbacks.

So, is it good to use real books for education - I don't think so - its just a money making racket.

I suppose that I sound like a ranting old lunatic - I just hate the extreme unnecessary waste at our expense caused by institutions for their profit.
Adriaan
I hear you and this is not just a problem with books. Look at software most companies are trying to convert us SAAS model. When a programme like Excel won't need updating for 99% of the users.
But with books when you use one, you concentrate on that instead of the other 20 tabs open on your device. The closest I have seen to a proper book is a kindle but it is hard to dog ear it to the correct page with that one word you don't understand.
I remember copying 1 chapter for my daughter of a text book because they only needed that chapter and the book smelt of a dead animal. So the rest was a waste.