Lexis Publications Board meeting in San Antonio

I just returned from San Antonio where I participated in the Lexis Publications Advisory Board meeting. I have come to enjoy these meetings; my fellow members of the Board are an impressive group, and fun to be around.  I always learn a lot from them too.  We also had several folks from Lexis, some of whom I had not met before, so it was good to meet them.  San Antonio is a beautiful city, especially down by the Riverwalk. Unfortunately, the weather was incredibly hot (not surprisingly) and so we did not get out much.

On the second day of the meeting, I offered a view of the future of law school text publishing. As part of my talk, I discussed the potential impact of the Kindle, and explained how I think electronic publishing is finally maturing, and what I think it will take before it makes significant inroads into law school publishing.  I also explained how electronic publishing and the Skills & Values Series could fit with ePublishing. I am, with Scott Burnham (a professor at Montana Law School) editor of the Series. The S&V books are designed to provide a more active form of learning in all law school courses. Four of these books have been published, and six more are under development (including one I am writing - on Discovery law).  The S&V Series of supplemental texts also each have an online component offering interactive exercises designed to bring to life concepts students are learning in class.  

Of course, the holy grail would be an eReader that had swift web access (faster than the Kindle) and was available in color.  That way, the S&V Series could truly combine the textual material and the interactive online components into an eBook of tremendous value.

Comments

[David Thomson]

Jason,

Thanks - I am glad you agree with me, at least on the final point.

But you would be wrong if you assumed that I think the Kindle is the end point. As I noted in my Kindle post on this blog last spring, I think we need something more like the rumored Apple tablet device, which would be a laptop, but also be an excellent book reading device as well.

So I agree, we're not that far off. And the Kindle has to go color, and faster web access. Or be something else (perhaps from Apple, perhaps from some other manufacturer).

[Jason Wilson]

David,

Your final assessment is correct. The Kindle would be better if it had swift web access and was in color (and had a functional keyboard, better search, highlighting, and note-taking features), but it doesn't and it won't for sometime because it's committed to eInk technology and is designed for one thing: reading. Every kid in the classroom has a laptop, so why are we trying to drive them to adopt yet another tech platform (more $$ for them to have to spend on education). While you may not like to read casebooks or other texts on the computer, the students of today are adept at it. West's Interactive Casebook series is making a go of it, Aspen's StudyDesk Solution is as well (but man is it ugly). There are other possibilities, such as BookGlutton.com (designed for book groups, but great potential in the academic setting). We're not that far off, particularly when you have white papers floating around telling profs how to build their own casebooks and deliver them to students. It's an exciting area, but in the final analysis, the Kindle isn't it.