School text books are a very large expense that college students like myself have while in college on top of the tuition, lab, technology and whatever kind of fee that university like to take on to make college more expensive. In this day of age many companies are offering Ebooks or digital text books that students are able to rent or buy. While this make thing more convenient for students to do research and find a particular thing that they are looking for. While these are good the bad in my opinion out weigh the good.
I cannot tell you how many textbooks that I have bought and kept and have reopened it after the class ended. What most college students and myself do with textbooks after the semester ends is sell them or trade them with another student. We try to break even by selling them or trading them with someone else. The Problem that I see with digital text books is that publishing companies are going to sell them to you and then you are unable to sell them back or to another person. Another problem that I run into is that we are supposed to keep these text books on our computers. There is to much of a risk that computer will crash with the viruses that are out there. If this happens, 1. you are unable to study, do homework, and past your tests and 2. you are going to have repurchase the textbook because the publishing company is not going to give you another textbook. The last major reason why we should not go 100% digital is because there are to many third world countries that would not have access to these books. Publishing companies would be completely ignoring half of the world and taking away students education because they are unable to view these textbook. Again the bad of going 100% digital textbooks outweighs the good. Going 100% digital only makes it convenient for a little while. I would much rather work harder and let students of third world country be able to get an education.