What's In Your Backpack?

The start of school is upon us again, and we find ourselves shopping for school supplies for students of all ages, including those who are college bound. A binder here, a laptop there, some pens and pencils, paper of all sorts, and a Kindle. Why not?

This year, several universities have begun to adopt the idea of e-book versions of textbooks that can be loaded onto a Kindle. What an obviously fantastic idea!

The lastest university publisher to join in the e-textbook game is Princeton. They join Oxford, Yale, and the University of California at Berkeley in publishing some textbook titles in e-book format for the Kindle. Some die-hard college students may balk at the idea of an e-book version of their textbook because they like to make notes in the margins and highlight passages, which when I think back to my college days, highlighting didn't work for me because I found I highlighted more on a page than not, making it difficult to figure out what the heck I was trying to do. Regardless, the Kindle offers highlighting, searching, and notating options, as well as bookmarking, thus making it easy to search an e-book instead of the traditional, manual page flipping in hopes that you find the page you are looking for.

Let's consider a couple of other issues that all college students must face: Finances and the Weight of the Backpack.

Financially speaking, it's no secret that Kindle version books are cheaper than regular books, so why not apply that same logic to textbooks that have become more and more expensive every semester. According to Dr. James V. Koch who, in 2006, published the report: An Economic Analysis of Textbook Pricing and Textbook Markets, textbook prices have risen 186% in the U.S. alone over a span of 18 years. This equates to 6% per year over those 18 years that students have had to pay more for their textbooks. Additionally, Dr. Koch stated that approximately $4.9 billion is spent on textbooks with only 39% of that amount being spent on used textbooks. Most bookstores are owned and operated by the colleges and universities themselves, although some wholesalers, such as Barnes and Noble, have gotten into the textbook game which means that if the idea of Kindle e-textbooks catches on, there could be some heavy duty competition down the road.

When approaching the notion of the Weight of the Backpack, one must remember that the Kindle weighs just over 10 ounces. We all know that textbooks tip the scales A LOT higher than that. Just for kicks, I retrieved 2 of my old college textbooks (Mechanical Engineering and Anatomy & Physiology) and placed them on the bathroom scale which topped out at 9.5 pounds. Add that to the weight of a binder full of paper, a laptop weighing anywhere from 3-5 pounds, along with other miscellaneous items, it is not a wonder so many people experience back problems, especially if the backpack is not used with both shoulder straps or if one chooses a messenger type bag instead.

With that said, I think the idea of merging Kindles with e-textbooks has tremendous promise and merit. Further I think this idea will gain momentum and see a lot more support in the future, especially with the potential future upgrades for the Kindle that include a bigger screen, additional graphical support, and color. It is not only a logical cost savings for the student, it is also a health conscience choice so that everyone can enjoy their post college life back pain free.

Sources: Kindle's Bright Idea: College Textbooks, Kindle Goes to College, Kindle Textbooks, Princeton University to publish Kindle textbooks, College textbooks go digital for Kindle, and E-Textbooks -- for Real This Time?.