Six institutions from across the wide spectrum of higher learning — including private colleges, state universities and ivy league schools — are participating in a pilot program to use Amazon’s much-buzzed Kindle DX e-book reader as a replacement for those heavy and exorbitantly priced textbooks. The program has been widely reported, including a blog post in The New York Times.
Not everyone at each of the schools’ classes will get a Kindle; only students in certain classes will get them. And since the reader is portable and search-able, unlike the ubiquitous book bag, it may put some college-town chiropractors out of work.
It also may lighten the load of recycled paper bins, since professors can make handouts and other paper-based materials available on the Kindle, an environmentally friendly goal shared by Princeton University and the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. Other schools enrolled in the pilot program are Case Western Reserve University, Reed College, Pace University and Arizona State University.
A Princeton spokeswoman told the NYT blogger that their participation in the pilot program stems from a university-wide initiative to use less printed paper: “Sustainability is the driving force behind Princeton using the Kindle,” Lauren Robinson-Brown was quoted as saying. Similarly, the University of Virginia hopes to become “carbon-neutral” by the year 2020.
Hate to be a downer, but the jury’s still out regarding the green credentials of the Kindle — it still has to be manufactured, with extremely non-green microprocessors, and shipped. But if you use it enough — if you actually take breaks from partying and study in college — then maybe it is a greener alternative.
But then you won’t be able to sell your old textbooks at the end of the semester for beer money.
Image courtesy of Amazon.com.