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Textbooks elude digital death blow, for now
Hard copy textbooks have survived the initial waves of digital disruption and they’re here to stay – for a little while anyway.
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In some disciplines, and physics is one, a very useful feature of textbooks used to be the end of chapter problems. It is surprisingly hard to come up with good problems. This part of the textbook has now been turned into various online systems (MasteringPhysics, Webassign, WileyPlus, etc), which are very useful to universities, and I’m sure are starting to make more money for publishers.
I have been a textbook author in the tertiary sector for a number of years and this report is on the money. Students always prefer print, even when a cheaper and more interactive e-book is available. Though my daughter in high school has all her texts on an i-pad. So this may be a generational issue. I would add that the digital adds on provided to many students are not really used. They prefer the text and instruction, be it face to face from the lecturer. The textbook market is also a market to academics as well as students and you need to appeal to both.