Will Digital Publishing Help Save California?

California, in case you haven’t heard, has a massive financial crisis happening currently, and state officials are exploring a multitude of potential ways to save money - some more controversial than not.

One of the headlines that caught our attention this morning was a new initiative by the Terminator himself (Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger).

Gov. Schwarzenegger knows that the state spends an incredible amount of money each year on (often outdated) textbooks and educational materials. That’s not a huge surprise, but in an effort to trim that down without sacrificing educational opportunities, digital publishing was the answer. Specifically, open-source digital textbooks. Instead of ordering loads of mostly outdated print textbooks, the Governor is pushing to have all of California’s textbooks available to students in a digital format. There are some very convincing reasons to go the digital route:

1. The potential for saving money is huge.

2. Students won’t have to carry 30lbs of textbooks on their back every day.

3. No more worrying about textbooks listing Pluto as a planet (which some still do). New information can be updated on the fly when you’re working in a digital world.

4. Traditional print textbooks are approved by the state on 6 year cycles. Now, think of how our world has changed drastically in the last 6 years. Exactly. The need for updated information is greater than ever, and with digital textbooks, this cycle could be greatly shortened and approved changes could be made on the fly.

There are plenty of critics of this new digital replacement plan, but hopefully California politics won’t stand in the way of quality education, which is more important than anything. Digital publishing, whether it’s in the form of catalogs, textbooks, regular books, or one of many other implements, will save money and will definitely provide a fresh and exciting new way to engage the target audience - in this case, the children.