The Death of the Textbook

California, hit by a budget crunch, recently announced it would try to do without textbooks for science and math. Students would go to the Internet instead. My students here in Qatar inform me that this is already the case in Qatari schools: instead of textbooks, every student is issued a laptop suitable for web browsing.

In principle, delivery through the internet and through computers is infinitely preferable to delivery on paper. It is much cheaper, and much better quality, allowing multimedia, personalization, interactivity, quick search, and infinite linkability. It will happen, and probably very soon.

Traditional textbook publishers had better adapt, or die.