Following the national trend, the UT bookstore will be adding more electronic textbooks, or eBooks, for spring 2010 classes.

"The UTBS will partner with a wholesale company to sell access cards for the eBooks," said Abbie Shellist, assistant director of the bookstore. The bookstore now carries only a few eBooks as requested by instructors, but she foresees the current list expanding to 100 up to 200 titles for next semester's classes.

An eBook is an on-line version of a book that may also be in print. UT students will buy an access card, about the size of a credit card, for each required book and have the card scanned at the bookstore's register. Students will then log-in with the code from the register receipt and access the book on-line.

It's about the students and their pocketbooks, and studies show that 75 to 85 percent of students don't keep their books. -Frank Guess, professor of statistics at UT

Shellist said an eBook costs about the same as a used book, usually one-fourth less than a new one. She estimated an engineering student spends between $700 and $800 per semester on hardbound books.

"Nursing 311 has three different books. This one class costs about $300 in books," she said.

Professor Frank Guess has given his fall Statistics 251 class three textbook options. Students can buy the hardbound book, the three-hole punched loose-leaf version or the eBook.

"It's about the students and their pocketbooks," Guess said, "and studies show that 75 to 85 percent of students don't keep their books."

Many foreign language courses use a hybrid, a combination of hardcover textbooks with homework exercises on-line.

The bookstore carries some course material as a package.

"The package has a code that gives access to the complete book and course materials on-line. Also, the package has a print copy of the book, because we are in transition from purely print to purely electronic," Shellist said.

Ebook disadvantages have slowed their acceptance and use by students and instructors. An eBook cannot be resold. Most will have a "drop-dead" date, typically 180 days, when the book will disappear from the computer. EBooks cannot be shared between computers.

English department instructor Amanda Caleb sees pros and cons in using eBooks.

"It requires that students have access to a computer during class ... to return to the text for their evidence. While not all students annotate their texts, it is a good skill to practice and one that we encourage. If I allow a student to use a laptop for an open book exam, there is no guarantee that the student doesn't wander to another site or another document. There are drawbacks - no annotations, the initial cost (of eReaders), but in the long run it could be more cost efficient," she said.

Instead of a computer, eBooks can be downloaded to a dedicated reader, such as the Kindle from Amazon for $299, the Kindle DX for $489 or the Sony Reader for $399. The Kindles allow bookmarking and highlighting passages. The DX has Adobe PDF support, free wireless internet access and can carry 3,500 books. Both Kindles have an in-line dictionary.

According to a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, five major textbook publishing houses have created a new company, CourseSmart, to promote their eBook products. Approximately 7,000 titles are now available from the group of Pearson, McGraw-Hill, Cengage Learning, John Wiley & Sons and the Bedford, Freeman, Worth Publishing Group.

"I think eBooks will take off when two things happen. When the electronic readers are at a reasonable price. Maybe Apple will do that. The iPhone will download books now. Maybe they will come up with a device that is everything," said Shellist. "And, two, when every book needed for college is available (as an eBook)."