Photo Credit: henry… via Compfight

This is the case of an art book with no art but plenty of URLs. In case you haven’t heard about the brouhaha north of the border that involves a strange mix of ebooks and textbooks, here’s a quick recap. When a student at OCAD University in Canada bought a $180 textbook for an art history class, she expected to open it and find pictures of art. Instead, the book was filled with big empty boxes where the art should have been and labelled with text references.

OCAD  Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk via Compfight

Turns out, the licenses for the art are expensive and the university wanted to help students save money.

This fiasco has us wondering why there were printed textbook at all in this case? Why wouldn’t students receive ebook formats for computers and devices? A bulk rate for access to the centrally stored photos could be reasonably shared among the students.

Well, of course, the answer is that Pearson, the textbook publisher powerhouse needs to justify all of its legacy costs of printed books and content. To be fair, Pearson ultimately bowed to pressure when the story spread across the Internet. OCAD’s dean sent a letter that assured students Pearson promised to purchase the  sorry excuse of a textbook back from the students and provide versions with art.

Ashley Brent is the dad of the student at OCAD who raised the alarm. He provides a good summary and balanced conclusion.