'lecturers posting notes online "harming" bookshops.' (really)?

i teach college. i post notes online. and although i would love to drop the requirement for my students to buy standard textbooks… the administration will not allow such a move on my part.

but what this all really gets at is that each teacher has their own spin on a subject. their own way of getting across certain material. and there is no one textbook that will get it right.

i agree in saying that college students should be able to navigate the waters of research. find out more information about a given subject. but the reality is… they are (at some point) also asking for a teacher’s help in this voyage.

and notes have the ability to act as this aid. (especially in a community college setting).

infoneer-pulse:

University lecturers posting course notes online are “harming” academic booksellers, and the posts can also deter students from reading around the subject, the chairman of the Booksellers Association’s Academic, Professional & Specialist Bookselling Group (APSBG) group has said.

Iain Finlayson’s remarks were made after it was revealed that The Bookshop at Queen’s, which serves students at the Queen’s University Belfast, will close after 53 years of trading, citing online sharing of notes as one of the reasons for its financial demise.

Tim Smyth, manager of the Queen’s bookshop, said the bookseller wanted to close before it “fell below the line”. He also blamed internet competition and free sites such as Google Scholar and Wikipedia for a decline in custom. He said: “I don’t know how [independent booksellers] can do it anymore. Certainly the academic model has reached a tipping point now: it is unsustainable.”

» via TheBookSeller.com