Free textbooks could be a few clicks away next semester.
The University Press of Florida - located behind Chipotle on West University Avenue - has teamed up with a digital book provider to offer free online textbooks and reduced price print copies.
The plan is to eventually provide free online textbooks for every general education class taught at any of Florida's 11 state universities, said Meredith Babb, director of the press.
All they can do is offer the free books, Babb said. Professors can decide to adopt them or not.
"Eight hundred dollars a semester [for textbooks] is stupid," she said. "Maybe the students will force the professors into some of these options. That would be nice."
The press now offers 89 textbooks for free online, and it plans to continue expanding its selection, she said. A good chunk of the books are math-related, she said, so the press will be targeting its advertising toward math professors this spring.
Most of the textbooks, which will be available at theorangegrove.org, will be offered in print as well. The prices should be 40 to 50 percent less than the prices of similar textbooks at other stores, Babb said.
And the plan is to make the books available in as many formats as possible, providing students with choices between paper, online and e-book varieties.
"Knowledge is becoming much more portable," Babb said.
