[tbdeinc]

And I found a bunch of cool reference books ranging from Manga, to insects and animals to Pulp and lots of stuff, including comics inbetween...

And as I excited-ly picked them up and had a quick flick thru them I found myself asking the same question I have been asking myself for the last 3 years...

Do I really need this book? Do I really want to spend the (insert cost of book) money?

Can I google this book or this subject and get the reference off of the internet? What is not internet available?

And 90% of the books were placed back on the shelves.

Anyone have this situation in mind when shopping?


George

[OtherEric]

It depends, you need to also allow for "is the information convenient even if it's online?"  It makes a difference but there are times when a book is just the better choice.  Different tools; the fact that the net is great doesn't make books obsolete.  It just means you can be more selective.

Besides, I love books for books sake.  Scans are WONDERFUL but getting a real comic is still something special.

[Powder Solvang]

I don't know the ages of everyone here but I suspect many of us formed our shopping/research habbits before the internet became a reality.
I still enjoy going to cons, perusing print ads and rummaging around in used book stores even though there is often a cheaper or easier way to get what I'm after. "The thrill of the hunt", don't you know!
Still, George, you should be commended for your good sense in this situation.

[John C]

There are also different reasons for different formats.  I get far less benefit from paper comics, for example (and a lot of the times, there's just as much of "the hunt" on the Internet), especially when you factor in the price, so I'm happy to mooch here instead.  On the other hand, there are books I buy because I don't want to sit in the park with a hot laptop in my lap (or craning my neck) on a humid day, or because I'll be staring for so long that I don't want to strain my eyes.

Then there's the mess of stuff I buy (usually CDs and DVDs, but quite a few books as well) to encourage the business to expand the product line.  Heck, it's a bit of a dirty secret, but I actually own several costly books of public domain, widely accessible fiction because the publishers' lists of upcoming books included things I wanted to read but couldn't fiind.

But yeah, at the other end of the spectrum, by book (and CD and DVD) shopping has been reduced substantially as more material has started appearing where I can (legally) get at it for free.  I almost (and I realize I'm gonna lose my street cred, here) bought the Time-Life "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" DVDs, but the episodes are available at AOL Video, so no, there's no chance of my shelling out the obscene piles of money I don't really have.  I'll also probably never buy a programming book again, and I'm starting to reconsider the textbooks I use for classes based on cost.  So I definitely sympathize as well.

[bchat]

I was in my early 20s when my rule of thumb became "I'll get it next week".  Sure enough, most of the time, "next week" became "never" as I usually found something else to spend money on.  Nowadays, my approach is different.  I'll pick things up that interest me, but as I continue through a store and find other things that grab my attention, I'll start putting some things back.  It's always based on "the most value for the least amount of money".

I don't take the internet into consideration when buying anything in a store.  As great as computers are, they're not convenient enough for me.  I love being able to read all the Golden Age comics available here that I'll never find or be able to afford, but nothing beats having the stories in a printed format, whether it's the actual comic, a reprint or pages I print-out for selective stories.  It's no fun trying to balance a laptop on my lap when I'm laying in bed at night, trying to relax after a long day.  It's far quicker to simply close a book, toss it off to the side and go to sleep, than it is to close all the programs I'ld have open, wait for the computer to shutdown, get up out of bed and put the laptop some place where I won't roll over on it in my sleep.

John C -

I almost (and I realize I'm gonna lose my street cred, here) bought the Time-Life "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" DVDs

That wasn't such a bad show, although I wouldn't spend a dime to watch it again.

Powder Solvang -

I still enjoy going to cons, perusing print ads and rummaging around in used book stores even though there is often a cheaper or easier way to get what I'm after. "The thrill of the hunt", don't you know!

I agree.  It is more fun to hunt-down & find something that isn't easy to come by.  How exciting is it to tell someone "I was searching for that file for what seemed like five minutes"?  And while internet shopping may take the leg-work out of the equation, getting a hard-to-find comic still depends on a certain amount of "right place, right time".

[narfstar]

Text books are a racket! They are now obsolete but will not go away because they are in cahoots with colleges and politicians. It would be far cheaper to give each student a laptop and use PD programs and old pd textbooks. The teacher should teach the class any suplemental can be found elsewhere. I do not use the text book in my Algebra class. If students could understand the algebra mumbo jumbo in the book then they would not need the teacher. They can't understand the book but at least a good percentage can understand me. 

I do buy the few new comics I like enough to support them even though I usually have it downloaded first.

[Yoc]

Whoa Narf, the 'Text Book Police' might hear you!

[narfstar]

The great text book conspiracy is part of my education book

[Yoc]

I've always thought it was a scam.
God bless the teachers who photocopy and hand out needed text for classes!
They are rare but I've seen it happen.

[John C]

The teacher should teach the class any suplemental can be found elsewhere. I do not use the text book in my Algebra class. If students could understand the algebra mumbo jumbo in the book then they would not need the teacher. They can't understand the book but at least a good percentage can understand me. 

As a matter of fact, my first-night spiel usually runs along the line of "you just paid over a hundred bucks for the book and are laying out another four thousand to listen to me.  If I just tell you what the book says, one of those are wasted, and I'm not forty times more entertaining than even the worst textbook."  I love reading, even technical material, but I've never found a textbook I thought was worth the effort.

Sometimes I catch crap from the department because I'm not teaching "the official syllabus" (which is, in fact, usually the book's table of contents), but I'm an adjunct and they need the coverage, so tough luck, guys.

And yeah, Yoc, textbook people are even getting nastier.  Forget about the endless new editions that never add anything useful to the discussion (I've got a programming languages textbook--the Sebesta book, for those who care--that gets a new edition every other year, and it's always for the worse).  Thank goodness my office manager gets my review/instructor copies for me, because I do NOT have the patience for the endless interrogations they put her through to prove that I'm a real person.

[narfstar]

The colleges contract to get new books every two years so they can not buy back and reuse perfectly good books. It IS a racket

[Yoc]

What, you've got to have some 'secret handshake' just to get a teacher's copy???

Wow, I smell a John Grisham novel in all of this!  No Joke.

[JonTheScanner]

As someone who has actually written a text book (which I'm pretty sure no one here save Ontology whom I gave a copy to has read) I'll give you my own personal beefs with textbooks.

Copy editors do not understand what you wrote and so often cannot  edit it.  They often make it worse.  One time I wrote about "basis risk."  It matters not if you know what that is or not as the copy editor, but if I use the phrase 50+ times including in the title, can you maybe guess that it wasn't a typo for "basic risk" and at least ask before you edit it out?

In this day and age, why doe so much have to be retyped into your program for layouts or whatever, certainly there must be some interface that would allow you to pick up at least the text of what was written.  And don't typsetting programs have spell check?  How can words like iiis get past the in-house checking?

I understand (barely) why technical material needs to be re-input though I'd think with Tex and its derivatives not to mention Word's equation editor or embedded OLEs even retyping those shouldn't be needed.  But if you need to re-key in technical material, can you at least hire someone who knows what an equation looks like.  I'm not asking they understand the equation, but know, for example, where and where not to break a line.  E.g., do not set an equation like

blah blah      a(x + y
) blah blah = 2

The right parenthesis simply cannot start the second line



Sorry I'll go back and quietly scan JVJ's books, again.

[John C]

As I understand the process (and I, y'know, don't, thank the stars), once you know the very specific person you need to talk to (apparently, this is non-trivial), you need to convince them that (a) the school is real, which I imagine is now more complex, now that we've merged and changed names, (b) that the class really exists and isn't just some kid trying to scam a free textbook, and (c) that I'm really a real professor on the real school's payroll.

Then you have to take the torch and go south, east, south, south, south, north, east, east, and northwest to get the chest, and...no, hang on, that was something else.  Hm.  I wonder if shouting "XYZZY" on the phone repeatedly would make the process go faster...

(Yeah, I've been using computers THAT long.)

But yeah, if it weren't for keeping the department quiet, I'd probably never order a textbook for my classes.  As it is, I don't require them.

I agree with Jon, too, by the way.  The editors clearly don't know what's going on.  I have a "trophy" from my undergraduate days, which is an operating systems book whose table of contents lacks existing chapters and suggests the presence of things unrelated to the field.  It's like someone hands them a manuscript, which then goes through a shredder, and then they spend the weekend piecing the book back together from confetti.  Then they cross out all the supposed typos and replace them with wildly inappropriate English text.

[tbdeinc]

I teamed up with others in highschool and photocopied the needed pages from the BOOKS-WE-SHOULDA-PURCHSED and it was glorious!!!!

Why was it glorious you may ask... because by the end of the year, we realized only 25% of the books (math, science, physics, etc...) where actually used. The rest was in class spur-of-the-moment teachings.

The teachers actually got involved with the lessons (back then), they didn't slap a list of pages we had to do while they sit back and have their coffee...

I fear, my picky-ness to books verses the internet may be something of an increasing situation.

What it comes down to is: money verses knowledge.

Can I get the knowledge from the internet or elsewhere for cheaper or free?

If no, buy the book.

If yes, then leave the book on the shelf and move along.

I have books on insects, manga, science, history, archeticture, how to's, COLEs NOTEs (anyone remember those jems?) making of (insert movie title), etc... the list goes on...

That was then and to a lesser degree is now... ex. history of world war 1, airplanes through out the ages, European hardcover Comics, Oversized Comics... Collected Manga etc...

Google has slowed the exodus of my money from my pockets.

George

[narfstar]

John thank you for not requiring the text book. How often a class has more than one text book "required" that may not be used or one little thing used. Can you imagine buying a classic literature book? WHY? You could buy each individual story needed cheaper than the cost of one new book. There is no justifiable reason to require new literature books. I remember a high school science teacher being qouted on the need for more money for new up to date science books. Let me clue you the facts of high school science have not changed that much do to new knowledge. The level of info for high school is the same as it was 25 years ago. Math books get worse every adoption. I would much rather use a 35 year old algebra book than one published now.

[JVJ]

Then you have to take the torch and go south, east, south, south, south, north, east, east, and northwest to get the chest, and...no, hang on, that was something else.  

Yes, but ONLY if the dwarves have stolen YOUR treasures...

(me too) Peace, Jim (|:{>

[Yoc]

Wow, this has certainly turned into one 'hot-button issue' eh?
I'm quite enjoying the exchange.

Now up here in Canada some universities are requiring (supplying maybe?) that notebook computers be used and that homework assignments only be submitted via email or something like that.

Is this moving ahead or another example of the 'text book swindle'?

One question that popped into my mind was 'can you supply your own cheap notebook or do you have to use an "insert name here' brand?

-Yoc

[misappear]

I tend to shop Border's and Barnes and Noble about once every ten days.  I pick up the comic-pulp-media stuff I like from the bargain racks.  The price is usually right, and I can justify it in my mind because of the off-retail savings.  I did buy "The 10-cent Plague" (which I recommend highly) at full pop, tho.

Nothing will ever replace the feel of a book, an easy chair, and a beverage.  Although I am really tempted by buy that new Kindle.  

I use as many pulps, comics, radio shows, and anything else I can find in my high school classroom.  My principal laughed at me my first year at the school because of all the paper I used making copies.  Thankfully , there were two others who made more copies, so I didn't get "the lecture."  

I am lucky to be one of those teachers who gets to use Krigstein's Master Race for in-class analysis.

--Dave  

--Dave

[Yoc]

Nice choice there Dave.
What class are you teaching?

I know of a biology teacher that love to use obscure Atlas books for teaching examples and I know of a couple of librarians that have used comics to help teach young people the joy of reading.

And anything that can teach people that reading is COOL/FUN/Etc. is a Good Thing!

-Yoc

[misappear]

Yoc,

The class I use the 20th century pop culture media is called Basic Skills.  This is a class taught to mostly high school freshmen who have not been engaged in the normal process of learning English "by the book." 

We did a unit one time on Matheson's I Am Legend where we read selections, watched all three movies for a compare/contrast essay.  We explored the subtle bits of the genre from all directions.  Very cool stuff

I've used the original Classics Illustrated Pit and Pendulum along with the text.  We had an interesting time with the text, EC comic, and X Minus 1 radio show of Bradbury's "Soft Rains" story. 

Kids seem to like detective fiction from the pulps.  I've used back ups from Shadow pulps (thanks to those facsimilies from a few years ago) as well as stuff culled from the Yahoo pulp groups I belong to.

Shakespeare just doesn't grab em.

--Dave

[Yoc]

Hi Dave,
True, Shakespeare might not grab them as fast but considering how many modern 'treatments' old W.S. has gotten it wouldn't be hard to repreat your 'I Am Legend' technique with any number of his stories.  Don't high-school kids still respond to Romeo and Juliet?

EC did a large number of Bradbury adaptions.  I believe Soft Rains was one of the first I ever read.
Poe has been adapted by different artists as well.  But he's certainly an acquired taste.  But if Black Cat doesn't get you....
I remember getting to hear Jeff Wayne's record adaption with Richard Burton reading HG Wells' War of the Worlds from the late 1970s.  What a great record!  Very visual and well done.  AND it ties in nicely as a modern example of the Old Time Radio shows of yesterday.  Hey, if your students like pulp mysteries they might enjoy some old "Suspense" or "The Shadow" radio shows.  Just a thought.

It sure sounds like you teach a fun course.  Congrats on finding ways to get into their heads. 

-Yoc

[tbdeinc]

Here is something along the lines of the discussion...

http://comicsintheclassroom.net/

One of my comics were featured on the site a while ago.


G

[Yoc]

Thanks G!
I'm adding this link to our Reference Links post.

[tbdeinc]

I'm just a humble cog in the machine of knowledge... soon, oh yes very soon I will take over the world!!! BWAHAahahahahaha! Hick Snort... Ahem... where was I?

Oh yes...

So I was in another book store... this one had cheapers of cheap books... you know the type of store that is going out of business sale... for-the-last-3-years!!!

Well, I found books that have been out of print for well over 30 years.

This really put my thinking to a test... Old books, books that progress and technology would not possibly consider re-printing or putting up in googles or archive.org's vast library...

Like books which have Brontosaur-iz... etc...


G