Solutions to the Problems of Rising Costs of Books

Alternative Solutions to the Rising Costs of Books

The concept books comes into an existence because of the needs to store information and pass the same information to the next generation. Books have been used for several centuries dated back to the time of bronze age. However, books have passed through revolutionary changes starting from when people write on clay to the time when books have been converted into an electronic format. Earlier books were meant to keep observations and records. Several years afterwards, books have found their places in academics, literatures, politics, and poetry. Over the years, books have witnessed changes of being imprinted from clay to paper. However, rapid development of information technology has transformed books from paper to paperless format and delivered to users in an electronic form generally referred as e-books. E-books refers to the transfer of books into an electronic format where readers are able to access the books' contents through electronic devices such as computer system, iPad, Cellular or Tablets. Typically, e-books have become immensely popular among casual readers and students and many journals and articles are currently being published using the electronic format.

Effective reading of quality books has been the primary factors that can enhance students' academic success. Amount of reading is consistence related to a growth in vocabulary, verbal fluency and growth in reading comprehension. More importantly, success of students in the university has been linked to availability of quality and affordable books. Quality books enhance students' analytical and critical thinking skills, which enhance students' efficiency in a workplace. Despite the importance of books for an academic success, many students often complain about the increase in the prices of traditional print books. Typically, students complain that prices of books keep increasing making many students facing challenges in having access to quality books for their academic purposes. (Hermida, 2009, Knobelsdorff,2012). However, bookstore managers of various universities maintain that books are sold at breakeven prices.

Increase in prices of printed books has made large number of students to consider believe that electronic books (e-books) can serve as an alternative to printed books. Within the last eight years, the demand for e-books has risen significantly. Factors that lead to an increase in the demand for e-books include low cost of producing e-books, and rapid technological development. Moreover, introduction of e-readers devices such as Amazon Kindle, and Sony Reader has made increasing number of students to shift to web-based and electronic books as an alternative to printed books in order to overcome constant increase of prices of the traditional printed books.

Objective of this paper is to carry out the research to find the best alternative to printed books. The paper compares printed books with web-based books using different criteria that include price of the books, shipping costs, book buyback program, availability and students' opinions about books' purchased. The paper also investigates whether e-books can assist students receive quality academic contents similar to print books.

Background

Rapid transition from print books to electronic books in the last few years has made electronic books to become a major topic of discussion among management of public and school libraries in Bermuda and across the United States. Typically, over two third of public libraries in the United States provide access to electronic books. Since 1970s, e-books have become a major topic of discussion within public libraries across the country. The origin of e-books was traced to Gutenberg who launched a digitalized cultural work in 1970s that encouraged the dissemination and creating of e-books. However, there was no mass market of e-books during this period, readers could only view the Gutenberg's project through desktop computer. Moreover, the project could only be accessed with a limited remote host-database. The introduction of e-readers such as Amazon Kindle introduced in 2007, and Barnes & Noble's in 2009 and Kobo make increasing number of users to gradually turn to e-books as an alternative to traditional print books. Moreover, increase in the cost of print books and rapid development of information technology has made the demand of e-books to increase rapidly.(Besen, & Kirby, 2012).

The study intends to find an alternative to the traditional print books because many students complain about rising costs of traditional books. Typically, the issues need to be investigated because rising costs of books can make increasing number of students to drop out of the institutions leading to the decline in students' population. Moreover, the increase in the costs of books can discourage people from attending colleges, which will consequently lead to decline in the total population of students in country. More importantly, a decline in students' population can lead to a decline in the country's GNP per capita. An investigation carried out by the World Bank (2000) on the relationship between level of country's educational enrollments and GNP per capita shows the countries with higher college enrollments record higher GNP per capita than countries with lower college enrollments. The findings of World Bank investigation reveals that there is a positive correlation between the level of college enrollments and a country economic development. Typically, all low income countries record low college enrollments, while virtually all high income countries record high college enrollments. Thus, it is very critical to find solution to the increase in the price of books in order not to reduce college enrollments in the country, which can affect the country's economic development .

Purpose

Major reason that motivates the author to embark on the study is to persuade the university authorities to provide substitute to the costs of print books. It is essential to realize that book availability and contents are very critical to students' academic success. If the costs of available books are high, students may not be able to have access to these books.

Major reason that motivates the author in investigating the issues is the constant increase of the prices of printed books where the cost of the e-books are lower than the cost of the printed books. Besen, & Kirby (2012) argue that costs of e-books are lower than the costs of printed books . The authors argue that costs of printing, distribution, and acquisition are the major reasons that make the costs of print books to be higher than the costs of e-books.

Moreover, publishers incur costs of quality assurance, and costs of digitized preparation. The easy access of e-books and the cheap prices that electronic books offer to students are its major benefits over the traditional print books. Typically, many online book retailers offer readers or students an opportunity to read free chapters before purchasing the books, and the print books does not offer this type of benefits . For example, many publishers offer free read of first chapter for a prospective buyers. The method assists the reader to evaluate the quality of a book before the book is bought.

Major factor that leads to the increase in the costs of print books in the recent years have been attributed to the significant amount of overheads used to publish books and these overheads include utilities, office space, salaries and benefits. Typically, publishers take enormous risks when signing a publishing agreement with a new author. There is no guarantee that the publisher will derive a steady income from a newly published book after agreement is signed. Since publisher incur enormous costs through printing, distribution and editing, the only way to breakeven is to pass the costs to customers making the readers to pay high prices for a book purchased from a publisher. However, the advent of electronic books has drastically reduced the price of books offered to customer because there is no printing and distribution costs involved. Since e-books production cost does not include printing and distribution costs, naturally, the price of the e-books will be lesser than the costs of print books.

McMaken, (2012) argue that publishers incur 8% for the cost of printing alone. By eliminating the printing costs, the costs of a book will be reduced from $26 to $22.75 . Since the electronic books are delivered in a digital form, the price of most e-books range from $9.99 to $99. Many classic e-books are offered free of charge. Overall benefits that e-books offer to students make this study investigating the issues. (Gray, & Copeland,2012).

However, St. Joesph's Alter Library conducts an investigation on the perception of undergraduate towards the use of e-books, and the outcomes of the research reveal that around 66% of students still prefer print books to e-books (McMaken, 2012). The finding is surprising despite the growth of digital culture in the contemporary library environment. Although, 80% of participants still prefer using both formats. However, a research outcome from the investigation on the use of print books vs. electronic books among the students of the University of California reveal that the usage rates are similar. On the other hand, usage of e-books compared to print books among students at the University of Pittsburg shows that students use twice of the print books. On the other hand, Mitra, Singh, Ramya, et al. (2010) point out that technology has not yet been able to overcome the standardization that the traditional books offer to readers. With rapid development of internet technology, many students still believe that they can found almost everything through the internet. While more than 4 billion websites are available worldwide, only 6% of the websites contain valuable education contents. Despite the increasing use of tradition books among students, the use of e-books still has more prospect over print books. Portability is the major benefit of e-books over printed books. For example, thousands of books can be stored in just one Tablet which will be easy for a student to carry. However, it will be challenging for a student to carry 10 books at a time.

Rojeski (2012) argues that library management can reduce the costs of the books offered to students by offering e-books instead on solely relying on the traditional print books. Typically, libraries can enjoy immense advantages by offering electronic books to students. Major advantages to be derived from adopting e-books include saving of physical library space, increase access of books for students who are off-campus and ability to allow multiple users to access a single book. Unlike print books that require hundreds or thousands of shelves to line up the books, e-books do not require shelves since all the books are stored in an electronic format.

Research Problem

The rising costs of books are the problems that this study attempts to address. Many students are complaining about the rising costs of books making them facing challenges to buy required books for their academic purpose. Although, rising costs of books have been the major problems globally, nevertheless, there is still no effective policy implementation that can address the problems. Moreover, there are scanty of literatures that provide a comprehensive solution to the problems. This study attempts to fill the gap by providing comprehensive solutions to the problems. The solutions will assist students and colleges authorities to overcome the problems that students face with regards to the rising costs of books.

Methods of Investigation

The study uses the document analysis and case study as the methods of investigation. Document analysis is the qualitative research method used to collect and evaluate document . Although, qualitative research has been used for many years as a way of investigating an inquiry, however, in recent years, there have been an increase in the use of document analysis to derive solutions to a problem. "Document analysis is a systematic procedure for evaluating or reviewing document -- both electronic (internet-transmitted and computer-based) materials." (Glenn, 2009 p 27). Similar to other analytical and research methods in qualitative research, document analysis examines and interprets data in order to gain a greater understanding, elicit meaning as well as developing empirical knowledge from different documents. The "documents can be analyzed as a way to verify findings or corroborate evidence from other sources" (Bowen 2009 p 30).

Document contain words, text, and images which other researchers have recorded. Documents also include books, e-books, journals, articles, manual, background papers, event programs, newspapers, press releases, survey data, and various public records. Photo albums and scrap books can also be used to carry out research purposes. In essence, documents collected are subject to analytical procedures to synthesizing, appraising, and selecting in order to collect relevant facts. Document analysis delivers data that include quotations, excerpts and entire passages organized in major categories, themes and case examples. (Glenn, 2009).

By using the document analysis for method of inquiry, the study has been able to collect vast amount of data related to the research paper and able to analyze various documents in order to have access to the contents relevant to the research topic. Major benefits of document analysis is cost saving. Typically, the researcher is able to have access to large volume of data with lesser time. Unlike survey and interview method that take much time to complete, document analysis provides effective and efficient way to collect data.

The study uses different electronic database to access different documents. In the contemporary educational environment, electronic database has become a method that can be used to access to a large volume of data. The study collects data from electronic databases that include Science Direct, Emerald Insight, and EBSCOhost. These databases contain millions of academic books, e-books, journals, articles and dissertations that the researcher finds valuable for the document analysis.

This study uses the document analysis in combination with case study in order to carry out a triangulation. The essence of qualitative research is to use different methods and multiple data source to seek convergence. In essence, the triangulation assists the researcher to enhance a credibility of research findings. By examining and evaluating data collected using different methods, the researcher is able to collaborate findings from different data sets. More importantly, document analysis is used in combination of a case study to produce rich descriptions of organizations and program in order to deliver the importance of e-books for the academic purpose. Meanwhile, the study collects data from non-technical literatures in combination with case studies to develop understanding, uncover meaning as well as discovering insights to the research problems.

The document analysis also delivers a supplementary research data for this study. The data collected from the document provides additional insight for knowledge base. The research process is also carried out by sourcing for data from library archives and catalogues. Using this process, the study has been able to collaborate evidence from other sources. One of the benefits of document analysis is that it is less time consuming, which make it more efficient than other research method. Availability is another important benefit of document analysis since many documents are available through open domains, which does not require seeking authors' permission. The easy access of document analysis also makes the research method to be more attractive in a qualitative research method. Moreover, document analysis is more cost effective because a researcher will incur lesser costs to collect large volume of data since the data have already been collected, and analyzed by other researchers. What remains is to evaluate the quality and contents of the document.

Despite the benefits that this study stands to derive using document analysis as a method of data collection, the use of document analysis alone may not be sufficient to achieve the research objectives and solve the research problems. For example, data collected through document analysis may not be detailed enough to solve research problems. More importantly, relying on document analysis may lead to a bias. For example, if a researcher collects data about an organization, the document collected can be aligned to the organizational corporate procedures and policies, which may not provide objectivity.

Despite the limitations derived from the document analysis, the benefits that this study derives from using the research procedure outweighs its shortcomings. The study uses the case study to supplement the documental analysis as a means of triangulation, which assists in enhancing reliability and validity of the research findings.

Case studies

This case study describes unique challenges that students of Dickinson College face with reference to the rising costs of books and the strategy the college has employed in solving the problem. Dickinson College is an higher institution in the United States that offers four-year program in liberal arts. The institution can boast of approximately 2,500 undergraduate students. With increase in the students' population, the College faced challenges in expanding its library space because of lack of available land. Moreover, the college was faced with problem of limited budget.

By consequence, the college has shortage of books in the library, which could not circulate the entire student. The shortage of books in the library made students to rely on books purchased from the bookshops to complete their academic studies. However, a recession between 2008 and 2009 had led to the rising costs of books which has become a major concern to both student and college authorities. To solve the problem of constant increase in the costs of books, the management of Social Science Library implemented a program by launching the e-books for the students in 2011. The goal of the program is to address the problem of incessant high costs of books that students are facing.

To implement a large scale e-book program, the college carried out a pilot program about the benefits that students would drive from the program. The pilot program was to identify some of the important factors that users stand to gain from the e-books. The librarian selected seven distinct titles for the pilot study where four tiles were selected for e-books and three titles were selected for print books. The pilot program attempted to discover if electronic books could be used to substitute print books in order to overcome the problems students were facing with rising costs of books. The program was also use to compare the benefits the students would derive from using the e-books compared to the traditional books.

Dickinson College also used the survey method to sample students' perception with regards to e-books and traditional print book . The survey was administered electronically using email method and students were allowed to present their feedback regarding to the costs of e-books vs. print books and user experience related to e-books and traditional print books.

The first survey was carried out to determine the students' experience towards the use of e-books and the survey is presented as follows:

Survey 1: User experience towards print vs. electronic books

1)Have you ever an e-book before?

Yes

No

2)If yes, where do you locate the e-book?

Library catalog

Library database.

Google or Google scholar

Other internet search. .

eReader device such as Nook, Kindle or iPad.

(3) Which book format do you prefer print or electronic books for class?

(4) What do you dislike from using ebooks?

Book costs.

Restrictions on users.

Ability to download text.

Reading online. .

Long-term preservation.

5) Do you like purchasing required books yourself? .

Yes.

No.

6) Choose the book format that you believe cheaper for the same book title- print or electronic books?

7) Choose the book format that is more costly for the same book title- print or electronic books?

8) What do you like from using the ebooks? .

Accessibility anywhere.

East of use.

Ease of cppying / printing.

24/7 accessibility.

East of reading.

Ease of searching the text. .

No particular appeal.

The second survey is used to compare the costs of traditional print books with e-books.

Survey 1: Costs of print vs. electronic books

1. In your opinion, which book format do you believe more costly ?

E-book

Print

2. If you select e-books, state the reason that make the e-books more costly than print books

Price of the books

Shipping costs

3.If you want to buy a book in the future, which book format will you prefer?

E-book

Print

4. Suggest a method the College can employ to overcome the rising costs of books

Launch an e-book program

Allow students to subscribe to the academic database

Instruct students to continue using print book.