With a few clicks of the mouse, any internet user can access millions of books, scanned and available:

“An international consortium of universities and libraries announced Tuesday they have digitized more than 1.5 million books and made them available through a single website.”

link: Online library brings 1.5 million books to internet

If the internet library could extend to university text books, individual students could save thousands of dollars each semester. It no longer would be necessary to spend hundreds of dollars for a single text book that would be used for a just few months. It would be available online, with the latest updates and revisions included.

If text books were made available online, the litigation would be immense. An online text book library would be a ‘dream come true’ for students worldwide, but it would diminish profits severely for publishers and universities. After all, education is big business.

Catherine Forsythe

Tags: internet library, books, text books, students, litigation, profits, universities, publishers