In a message of , Tom Cotton (1:3819/128) writes:
 TC>MS>I don't know much about what publishers are doing about electronic
 TC>  >replacements for books.  They seem to be very tentative to
 TC>  >this point, and  unsure of what to charge for the products
 TC>  >they do have.  I have tried to  price online encyclopedias
 TC>  >for our UMassK12 internet service for teachers and
 TC>  >students.  They are either incapable of generating a price
 TC>  >or else come up  with something totally unaffordable.  One
 TC>  >wanted us to pay $20,000 for our  2,000 users.  Needless
 TC>  >to say, we could not do that.
 TC>
 TC>Did you require your text to be used by the students in your class ?  
No.  I taught the course it is used for for quite a few years, but I have not 
 taught it since the book came out.  Furthermore, if I did assign the book, I 
 would have to turn over the royalties on those copies to a scholarship fund. 
 Since we never know who buys a new text, a used text, or no text, that would 
 be an interesting exercise to carry out.
My colleagues have elected to use the book most of the time since it first  
appeared quite a while back, but I stay completely out of all discussion of  
whether or not the book should be used. Since it is used at Harvard,  
Berkeley, and various other places, I don't think our students are  
short-changed if my colleagues do decide to use it.
 
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