August 4, 1999

By PAMELA MENDELS

More Publishers Adapt Textbooks to Digital Era

hen students purchase a thick textbook called "Essentials of American Government," they get 444 pages of information about the American political system. But they also get something more than the material that appears between the bindings: access to hundreds of links on the World Wide Web.

Wrapped in every edition of the book, published by the Allyn & Bacon unit of Pearson Higher Education, is a CD-ROM that contains the entire text of the book, plus highlighted words that link to appropriate sites on the Web. In the electronic version of the book, for example, clicking on a reference to "Thomas Aquinas" leads students to a Web site with a biography of the religious philosopher, while the word "Reformation" links to a site with detailed information about the religious movement.

Experimenting with the digital delivery in an effort to hold on to an electronic age audience.

"Essentials of American Government" is one of about 200 college textbooks issued over the last two years in both print and electronic format, as Pearson, a major college textbook company, tries to figure out how to adapt the old-fashioned textbook to the new digital era.

"We've got instructors interested in bringing the Web and interactive material into the classroom," said Patricia Leonard, senior vice president and general manager of distributed learning for Pearson Higher Education. "They are trying to teach the MTV generation. Doing simple 'chalk-and-talk' and teaching out of textbooks is tried and true, but you've got a new generation of students quite adept at using technology."

Pearson is hardly alone in its efforts to stake a claim in the digital world. A number of businesses are experimenting with how to offer electronic versions of textbooks and other scholarly material usually found on paper, potentially saving themselves money in the process.

For example, Houghton Mifflin Company, a large publisher, recently launched a pilot project in which two textbooks, one for English composition courses, the other for business classes, were converted to CD-ROM format. The CD-ROM versions were initially made available to summer students at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Houghton Mifflin is hoping to find out more about students' electronic preferences as it continues the pilot. It is also testing technological methods to prevent unauthorized copying in the cut-and-paste world of computers -- an issue that is key to publishers as they put copyrighted material online.

Meanwhile, Bell and Howell Information and Learning Co., a division of an information services company, plans this month to roll out electronic versions of "course packs" -- the collections of supplemental articles and other readings assigned by many professors. Students will be able to buy the digital packs, in disciplines as diverse as accounting and philosophy, at the 600 online college bookstores operated by the Follett Corporation, a large campus bookstore and education company.

Users will be charged to gain access to the material, but will be able to download it and print it out, said Tina L. Creguer, a spokeswoman for Bell and Howell. The course packs would range from about 10 to 250 pages if they were printed out, she said.

Follett hopes to sell the course packs at a significantly cheaper rate than conventional paper versions, thereby discouraging students from making copies for classmates, according to William Scharnweber, director of general books for Follett Higher Education.

Companies are experimenting with the digital delivery of collegiate text materials in an effort to hold on to their franchise in an electronic age. But they are also hoping to save money along the way. If students turn increasingly to bytes, rather than paper, publishers could spend less money on things like book binding, shipping and warehousing of texts. There could also be less urgency to come out with new printed editions of textbooks, because material could be easily updated online, said Gary F. Shapiro, senior vice president for intellectual property at Follett's Higher Education Group.

Still, no one knows yet just how receptive college students will be to electronic versions of text.

Sites Internet links of interest to readers of the Education column Forums Join a Discussion on Technology in the Classroom

Michael L. Kamil, a Stanford University education professor who studies technology and literacy, said there is little current research comparing reading material on screen to reading a printed page. Studies conducted in the late 1980s, when scrolling down a computer page was slower and screen resolutions were not as clear, gave the edge to paper, he said. "We don't know whether new, higher resolution screens and faster processors improve things," Kamil said.

Even so, he said he has found among his own students a desire for paper. "The first thing they do is jump off and go to the printer to run off copies," he said, referring to the course material he posts online. Kamil added that students want to be able to do things like mark the material with their own notes.

Publishers, too, are not sure how students will take to electronic material. As they experiment with electronic text, they are seeking answers to questions like whether students will prefer printed reading material to electronic versions, and whether their preferences change depending on the subject matter.

"The goal is to explore means that will help us answer some tough questions facing all publishers," said Alison H. Zetterquist, vice president of new ventures at Houghton Mifflin's college division.

The EDUCATION column is published weekly, on Wednesdays. Click here for a list of links to other columns in the series.

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Related Sites
These sites are not part of The New York Times on the Web, and The Times has no control over their content or availability.

• Pearson Education

• Information on CD-ROM editions of Pearson college textbooks

• Houghton Mifflin Company College Division

• Bell and Howell Information and Learning Co.

• Bell and Howell course demo

• Follett Corporation

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Pamela Mendels at mendels@nytimes.com welcomes your comments and suggestions.

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