E-textbooks?

[Goomba]

Does anyone know of any place that sells e-textbooks? This year I'm brining my pocket pc to school to take notes, and that should take a load off of my back, as well as keep my notes organized, but now the only thing that I need to keep my schoolbag light (or hell, just plain get rid of the schoolbag) is e-textbooks. I know I probably won't find any of my school's textbooks, but it would still be neat to look.

[mscdex]

Chances are you won't find ebook versions of your textbooks online. At least this is from my experience and what I've seen. Too bad though, I'd gladly put those suckers on my iPaq :D

[ctmagnus]

As would I. I severely hope that companies overcome this limitation in the next few years as I hope to return to school soon.

IMO, the best thing a school could do is release all their textbooks in non-DRMed MS Reader format or some other format that allows annotations, highliting, markup, etc.

[Goomba]

I really hope that if textbook companies do start to make ebook versions of their textbook that their only a fraction of the price. I know thats not a very good reason for publishers to make ebooks, but still they don't have to make an actuall hard copy of the book, so maybe the ebook could be something like Cost of Production - Retail price so that they still get the same amount for the book, but the customer pays less.

Its really dissapointing that publisihing companies don't do this, I think ebooks would really shine there. When I go back to school this Thursday all I'm going to have in my backpack is one notebook for math class and a folder for hand outs(and of course pencils and pens), but chances are that I'm going to leave that day with a heavy school bag because of all of the books!

[Jorgen]

Its really dissapointing that publisihing companies don't do this,

True, but for example University textbooks are updated often, so I doubt they would be much cheaper. A publisher needs lots of staff to produce and sell the books.

But, yes, textbooks are ridiculously expensive.

Jorgen

[Jorgen]

Very apropos: http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/30/coolsc.ebooks/

Jorgen

[Jorgen]

This seems a beginning http://www.fictionwise.com/Z1398H8235/ebooks/EducationEbooks.htm

Jorgen