HNT - Sue Dough Nym

CHCH news recently did a "back to school" piece on ebooks and came to the bookstore at McMaster to look into whether or not more students were buying etextbooks.

I talked about the fact that etextbooks were not like the "general trade" ebooks that you might normally buy from a place like Kobo, for example. (A great example to use since our bookstore sells Kobo readers along with iPads and other tablet devices that are popular because you can run various ebook apps on them).

Etextbooks are typically "time bombed" or set to expire at the end of the term, so, though the student pays slightly less for their etextbook they don't have anything at the end (ie, a book to keep or perhaps sell back into the used market and get some cash for, which typically helps them buy the next textbooks they need on their educational journey) - thus, the initial cost might be a little lower, but the residual value is typically much less in the long run.

Most of the students who have been weighing their options end up finding it a better value to purchase the textbook package which includes access to the etextbook. It is typically not that much more expensive than buying the ebook alone (several times, the ebook is included for free with the new textbook purchase), and they get the flexibility of using both depending on their location/situation. (For example, with a couple of the 1st year books we have for Chemistry and Kinesiology, the textbooks are extremely heavy. The bundled textbook/ebook allows the student to leave the textook in their dorm-room rather than lug it across campus, and if the prof refers to or reads from the book in class, the student can easily follow along accessing the ebook on their laptop, tablet or ereader device.)

Here's a snapshot from the interview done with me in our store.

I think it's cute that they got my name wrong. (They transposed the B and V - a popular mistake in a name where the B and R are silent and thrown in seemingly just to confuse people) and the second e is more of an "a" sound - ie, Lefave.......) It makes me want to collect a scrap-book of all the times I have appeared in the media over the years and my name has been mis-spelled. It might be fun to look back at.

But really, is it any wonder why I write under the pseudonym Mark Leslie?