Electronic readers, such as Kindles and Nooks, and tablets, such as iPads, are the hot ticket these days, but the tide of e-textbooks has not yet come in.  E-textbooks offer college students a cheaper alternative, but they have been slow to catch on, said Richard Shannon, general manager of the University of Iowa's University Book Store. The UI bookstore has 220 different e-textbooks available, Shannon said. They are, on average, 48 percent cheaper than a new textbook, but students still prefer the hard copy, he said.

To be honest with you, the sales are not substantial. Most people are buying the hard-copy textbook," Shannon said. "I just think we are on the cusp of a change here in the way people look at studying. In a few years, e-books will be totally accepted, but I don't think people are ready to make the shift."
 
E-textbooks make up less than 5 percent of the bookstore sales, Shannon said.  The scenario at UI is mirrored nationally.
 
Students, on average, spend $667 a year on required course materials, but e-textbooks are "very slow going at the college level," Charles Schmidt, public relations director with the National Association of College Stores.

Many people think of college students as "digital natives," but in reality, they are rooted in traditional formats when it comes to books, he said. Instead, much younger students -- those in elementary and junior high school -- are the "true digital natives," he said.

Only 13 percent of college students have purchased an electronic book of any kind, and of those, 56 percent said it was required for class material, Schmidt said of a survey conducted in the fall. The survey showed that 74 percent of college students prefer print over digital, which was the same result as the previous year, he said.

And, of students who use e-textbooks, 77 percent said they viewed it on a laptop or netbook, 30 percent used a desktop, 19 percent used a smart phone, 19 percent used an eReader and 4 percent used a tablet, Schmidt said.

Despite high-quality graphics, graphs and charts, technology is not yet advanced enough to support e-textbooks in a mainstream way, he said.

The day will come that e-textbooks are the preferred and prevailing format in college classrooms, but for now, they make up 2.8 percent of the textbook market, Schmidt said. By 2012, the association projects e-textbooks to increase to 10 percent to 15 percent of the market, he said.

"It's clear that printed text is never going to go away. It does certain things you can't do digitally, but as far as the primary format, it may decline or become ancillary over time," he said.