Here in eastern Europe, university is somewhat different then in the anglo-saxon world. We don't have homework problems (homeworks are never part of the final grade), and exams at the end of the semester are usually oral where the student has to prove theorems/algorithms or in general present some kind of theoretical framework. There is usually a problem-solving exam mid-year, but it only makes up 0-25% of the grade. It's usually managable to pass the problem-solving exam, the real Suck is the oral examination at the end when you're face-to-face with the professor.
As a result of this skew toward the theoretical side, our textbooks are light on problems and practicalities and full of theories, proofs, derivations, etc. (Even a Calculus 101 textbook.) They look more like upper-level textbooks in the anglo-saxon world. As a result, these "textbooks" are usually kept around for later reference.
This is currently changing with the introduction of the so-called 'Bologna process', which basically transforms our systems to more closely match the anglo-saxon world for compatibility reasons. Eg. before we only had 5 year MSc degrees, now we introduced the 3+2 Bsc/Msc system, which is a Good Thing.
Just because a (text)book is kept around for later reference doesn't mean it should be printed, as an electronic version is actually more searchable. The main obstacle is the 'reading off an LCD screen sucks sitting at the desk' issue, which once solved with a good DRM-free paper-like device will do to the Book Industry what MP3 has done to the Music Industry.
Already you can torrent almost any book, even ones that only interest a handful of people in the world, such as research-level physics books (example from my field: search for 'darksiderg cosmology'). The fact that these highly specialized books are torrented a few months after their publication date is pretty puzzling to me =) But I don't complain, as I can preview before I buy (we don't have bookstores selling english-language books, so checking them out at the bookstore is not an option). But once people can copy these to a book-like device, publishers will have to look for another revenue stream. Fortunately, with research-level books, the answer in theory at least is pretty simple: just cut out the publisher, researchers already generate print-ready Latex files anyways. In reality it will be a long struggle; a good use-case is research journals where the publisher is completely unnecessary but is still holding on, researchers are still signing over publication rights of their papers to companies like Springer.
As a result of this skew toward the theoretical side, our textbooks are light on problems and practicalities and full of theories, proofs, derivations, etc. (Even a Calculus 101 textbook.) They look more like upper-level textbooks in the anglo-saxon world. As a result, these "textbooks" are usually kept around for later reference.
This is currently changing with the introduction of the so-called 'Bologna process', which basically transforms our systems to more closely match the anglo-saxon world for compatibility reasons. Eg. before we only had 5 year MSc degrees, now we introduced the 3+2 Bsc/Msc system, which is a Good Thing.
Just because a (text)book is kept around for later reference doesn't mean it should be printed, as an electronic version is actually more searchable. The main obstacle is the 'reading off an LCD screen sucks sitting at the desk' issue, which once solved with a good DRM-free paper-like device will do to the Book Industry what MP3 has done to the Music Industry.
Already you can torrent almost any book, even ones that only interest a handful of people in the world, such as research-level physics books (example from my field: search for 'darksiderg cosmology'). The fact that these highly specialized books are torrented a few months after their publication date is pretty puzzling to me =) But I don't complain, as I can preview before I buy (we don't have bookstores selling english-language books, so checking them out at the bookstore is not an option). But once people can copy these to a book-like device, publishers will have to look for another revenue stream. Fortunately, with research-level books, the answer in theory at least is pretty simple: just cut out the publisher, researchers already generate print-ready Latex files anyways. In reality it will be a long struggle; a good use-case is research journals where the publisher is completely unnecessary but is still holding on, researchers are still signing over publication rights of their papers to companies like Springer.