The shitty thing is that many of these course books are written by the
professor, or by a colleague, making the print runs relatively small.
Few if any make it to the network of bookstores other than the campus,
or near campus ones. No printing company is going to print a hundred
thousand "extra" on spec for wide distribution.
Because science and history are constantly being rewritten by the
"experts", most subjects are updated or rewritten every few years,
causing yet another printing. It's unlikely that any given course-book
in any given college is printed any more than 5000 at a time.
As time has passed since the 60's when I was being schooled,
incredible amounts of historically significant events and scientific
discoveries have been made. Many more than in the preceding 50 years.
The human population has grown by 50% since WW2. The choices in
specialization in careers is vast compared to the 50's.
When I majored in Nuclear Physics as a freshman for 1.5 trimesters in
1961, I don't think I paid more than $18.00 for my books. Turned out I
was way too scholastically underprepared to be in that field. I guess
discussing all about it with my Dad over dinner most nights doesn't
count. He had home schooled himself from a BS in Zoology in 1933 to a
Masters in Math & Physics specializing in Nuclear Energy between 1953
and 1956. Good enough to be the US Representative at the ISO
conferences at the Hague where they worked on and off for years to
standardize working condition safety in everything from a dentists
office X-ray, hospital usage, on to weapons production and power
generation. I should have paid more attention to his Math studies
instead of the dazzling Physics revelations that were happening then.
I did get to meet some of the names in the business when we'd go into
MIT which had a small reactor, and a toroidal particle accelerator
with a cloud chamber in which one could observe (and photograph) the
products of these early collisions.
But I digress (as usual). Final point about textbooks.
That is not to say a book that is superb in any given subject will not
be reprinted for general collegiate distribution, or even globally, IF
the demand for it is there.
On Aug 10, 2010, at 20:04 , Sandy Harris wrote:
On 8/11/10, P. J. Alling <webstertwenty...@gmail.com> wrote:
I was once interested in taking a course in English, (Elixzbithan
Period),
History, It fulfilled a core requirement and looked interesting.
The cost
of books on the reading list amounted to > $800.00 for used books,
(this was
in 1976!), ...
Project Gutenberg have over 30,000 free books online.
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
Almost anything worth reading and old enough to be out of copyright
is likely to be there.
Not a lot of use if you're studying a field where the important books
are recent -- say computer science or even quantum physics -- but
probably great for English or history students.
Joseph McAllister
pentax...@mac.com
THE SENILITY PRAYER :
Grant me the senility to forget the people
I never liked anyway,
The good fortune to run into the ones I do, and
The eyesight to tell the difference.
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