For a graduate assistant in DUX, I’m actually a bit of a luddite when it comes to new technology. My phone is not smart, my computer remains firmly planted on a desk, and my books are the kind that won’t crash when you spill coffee on them (a necessity, given my reading habits). That said, when I read about Apple’s new iBooks Author software, I drooled a little bit. iBooks Author works in conjunction with the iBooks 2 app, released by Apple in mid-January, to allow Joe Nobody to publish his very own digital book. It’s clearly geared toward the educational community with an emphasis on textbook publishing, but ostensibly you can publish any kind of book your heart desires (yes, even that sci-fi novel you wrote when you were 16. HarperCollins doesn’t know what it was missing).
No, I don’t harbor a secret desire to publish a textbook (or Zombie Vampires from Mars, even though it would have been an instant classic), but I do harbor a not-so-secret desire to see educational materials become more accessible. Apple has teamed up with several prominent publishers to deliver textbooks that normally cost somewhere in the triple digits at much lower (dare I say reasonable?) prices. Digital distribution makes good sense in the textbook market, where new editions come out every few years. Who wants to drop another $200 because the editors added a new chapter and updated citations? No one! Just consider how much coffee $200 could buy. iBooks Author further increases accessibility by enabling instructors to publish their own materials digitally. I could see this technology easily taking the place of traditional course packs, which are expensive for the university to print, expensive for students to buy, and wasteful of natural resources (yay trees!). All this with the fun of mixed media (embedded YouTube videos in my textbook? Yes, please!) makes me think that edu-apps like iBooks and iBooks Author are indicative of the future of educational materials.
Caveat 1: As it stands, iBooks textbooks are only viewable on Apple mobile devices. There seems to be some way to convert these files to PDFs so they can be viewed on other devices, but I’m a little fuzzy on the details and Apple’s documentation certainly isn’t helping me out on this front. In the name of educational democracy, a work-around for students without iPads would need to be in place before the iBooks app is fully implemented in the classroom.
Caveat 2: There’s some lingering confusion about authors’ rights with regard to the content they publish and sell using the iBooks Author platform. Check out this post from the New York Times technology blog and this article from the Telegraph to read about the two sides of the issue.
As a future librarian, my question is this: How can libraries get it in on the edu-app fun? Here in DUX, we’re working daily to make our available resources more mobile-friendly. What else can libraries do to reach students who increasingly learn digitally? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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