Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"Since forever, college students have done the trade-in dance at the beginning and end of semesters to exchange unwanted textbooks for cash. Usually that cash goes back to the bookstore for the next round of textbooks (or a bit of end-of-semester partying), but it's a tried-and-true way of getting at least a few cents back on your hard-earned dollars."

Anything to break the monopolistic hold college bookstores have on textbook buy backs and you have my vote! Perhaps something like this, if it gets enough use, will at least get you more for your barely used textbooks. Of course, the best thing would be to have the textbooks you need digitized so you can have them on an iPad or other tablet, or even your laptop. Carrying around heavy textbooks is so 2010 don't you think?

"Amazon.com Inc. now has a Kindle competitor for textbooks: a California company called CourseSmart."

Amazon.com has been trying to sell it's Kindle DX to students and faculty as an alternative to the textbook. Now CourseSmart is entering the market with it's own textbook reader on the iPhone or iPod Touch. Amazon.com has lined up all the major textbook publishers to provide content, but now some of those same publishers are involved in this offering from CourseSmart. CourseSmart has over 7,000 titles from 12 publishers, and students will "rent" the textbooks for a set amount of access time, usually 180 days. The Kindle versions are purchased outright. There are definitely advantages and disadvantages to both methods, but anything to foster competition and drive down prices is a plus, especially in the notoriously overpriced world of textbooks.