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[OC] Academic textbooks being discarded from abandoned university buildings. More photos in post.
(media.piefed.social)
Aberystwyth University closed one of its campuses a few years ago. The place has been left to rot, but recently they’ve started clearing the place out, and removing all the old scientific textbooks. Most of them look untouched. Wonder how much this lot would have set students back if buying new.
It really depends on the subject; mathematics for instance probably isn't going to change much decade to decade, but psychology is changing constantly.
Genetics: my professor was the text author. He said that the information in chapter [let's pretend it's # 27] was bleeding edge when he wrote it six months prior to publishing, but it was out of date by the time it published and was very out of date now, a year later.
He gave us all his notes on the current version of the chapter and told us about the research coming in a few weeks that up render his new chapter obsolete so don't study too close.
I can't imagine publishing an up to date genetics text
Their tactic is to change the homework questions and reorder some stuff every year so they can force everyone to buy new textbooks.
The actual content changes very little.
Some professors will just copy the new questions and hand them out so kids can get used books.
The amazing profs will include practice question lists for multiple editions, but that's a lot of work.
The good ones stick to one edition of the book for a number of years, so that you can buy used books.