Why Textbook Companies Are Dying

I will start this entry out with a disclaimer that most of what I am going to write is pure conjecture. I have little to no evidence to support what I feel is true. Having said that, I will still be happy to express my opinion.

I do not think that textbook companies live under rocks. They are aware of the changes that are occurring to their industry. This is evident as some of them have attempted to get into the Student Information System (SIS) business or into the e-book realm. But overall, I think they have a slightly inflated opinion of themselves.

This blog entry has been stewing around in my head for a year or so. I see textbooks as an outdated idea. Why should we limit ourselves to one source of information for a class? Why use a textbook when there are almost limitless resources available to us on the web? Why spend ridiculous amounts of money on an textbooks that all too often are so limited in scope?

We recently went with a specific textbook companies literature series. Part of the package included online curriculum that would help to integrate technology into the class. During the presentation I was impressed by the publishing companies attempt to be relevant to a 21st Century school setting. This online component was a major selling point and one of the main reasons we went with this particular series. My thoughts were that we had found a publishing company that understood the fact that textbooks are becoming obsolete and that by providing an online component they could remain current and effective.

Now we are one quarter into the school year and I am hearing that many of the online features do not work with our systems. Upon calling the company for support I was asked why we do not use IE as our default browser. This is where I should have realized that Publishing companies are dinosaurs and we should run while we could. I informed them that we are a mac platform and that IE has not been developed for the Mac since 2003. The support reps response floored me. HE asked "Why would you use Macs?" Really, that is your question? He then did a little research and said it was a specific java update that was causing the problem. I told him that because we are Mac, that update did not apply to us. He then said that an older version of Safari was shown to work with the software. So he expects me to downgrade my current software set so that we can run his web based curriculum.

So this is where I am at. I have no need for a company that

1. Is so full of itself that it feels it can dictate to me which computer platform we should use, not just to run their software, but because they feel it is better.
   
2. Wants me to actually downgrade my browsers to best utilize the curriculum they offer.
3. Blames other software companies for "breaking" their product.
   
4. Refuses to write web based software to HTML or XHTML standards so that it can be used on most browsers.

This is why these companies will eventually die. They live in 1950, when they were able to dictate what the curriculum was and how it was taught, because you needed their textbooks and teacher resources. Well it is 2011, there is this little thing now called the "Internet" perhaps they have heard of it. Rumor has it that you can research almost any topic and find resources for almost every course. There are even people out there that have done a lot of research and are willing to share lesson plans and full curriculum. I would suggest that publishers figure out.