Cover Story

E-Books: Should You Use Them?

by P.D. Lesko with reporting by Diane Calabrese

The new E-book readers are proving tough to sell, and E-books are proving even tougher to produce. In 2000, leading E-book reader production company Gemstar-TV Guide International sold only 60,000 units, each priced between $300 and $700 dollars. Susan Kevorkian, a publishing industry analyst, pre- dicts that E-book device sales worldwide will only hit 1.7 million by 2004, a sales figure which is considered by publishing industry experts to be low. In addition, the number of companies attempting to offer E-book text and devices is declining. Poor sales of E-book reader devices has little to do with the poor sales of E-books, however. Sales of E-books are expected to generate just $70 million in revenue during 2002.

According to an article recently published in Information Week, "In a February 2002 presentation at the [Jupiter Research media forum] publishing execs gathered in New York and made it clear that the market for E-books is a nascent one that doesn't figure to mature any time soon....Larry Kirshbaum, chairman of Time Warner Trade Publishing, told attendees that the industry has underestimated the technical challenges involved and that even converting a digital file into an E-book format has proved more complex than anticipated."

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Canadian P/timers Protest Against Themselves

Canadian P/Timers Protest Against Themselves

On March 7th, 2006, 9,100 full- and partial-load faculty members of the Ontario Public Services Employees Union (OPSEU) took to the picket lines to protest pay and the alleged declining quality of education at Ontario’s 24 community colleges. Among the reasons for the strike is the college system’s purported overuse of part-time faculty, who, according to the union, don’t provide the same high caliber of instruction as Ontario’s full-timers. A press release by OPSEU Local 613 sets forth the union’s proposed solution to the problem: convert part-time jobs to full-time. But will this help Ontario’s part-timers (who are not unionized)?

Much appears to depend on who the “part-time” faculty are. In Canada, the term “part-time” refers broadly to three categories of contingent faculty: “part-time,” who teach six credit hours or less each semester; “partial-load,” who teach seven to 12 credit hours per semester; and “sessional,” who teach 13 credit hours per semester and are considered full-time, but are appointed on a sessional, or temporary, basis. Ontario law bars part-time and sessional faculty from collective bargaining. As a result, only partial-load faculty are members of the OPSEU, and only they participated in the now-settled strike. According to David Cox, Communications Officer at the OPSEU national office, 21 percent of the 9,100 strikers hold partial-load appointments.

Those with the most to lose from a reduction in part-time positions are Ontario’s part-time and sessional faculty. Like their adjunct counterparts in the United States, they enjoy no genuine measure of job security and, as evidenced by the OPSEU’s own statements, are considered a threat to the overall quality of higher education. Because they are prohibited from collective bargaining, however, they have far fewer resources to effect positive changes in their working conditions. As in the United States, criticism of part-time faculty tends to focus on their transient presence on campus, and the lack of involvement with students that this transience supposedly implies. The OPSEU Local 613 Strike Committee, for example, asserted in a press release published in the March 9, 2006 edition of SooToday.com (at http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/full_story.asp?StoryNumber=16213) that “[p]art-time and sessional instructors are not as available to students outside the classroom because they do not receive compensation for preparation and evaluation, nor do they receive access to email or offices in which they can meet with students….We want to increase the number of full-time faculty, and decrease the number of part-time faculty teaching our students.”

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The New Adjunct

What a Year It Has Been!

Posted: May 24th, 2010

Friends, Adjuncts, lend me your ear!

As we watch the dust settle on the 2009-2010 academic year, let us take a moment to breathe a collective sigh of relief, as well as reflect. If your experiences have been anything like mine, I can assure that you are tired and reflective. I can honestly say that this has been a both gruelling and fulfilling semester. I have slept in spurts, written and read over 7,000 pages, and questioned my sanity on multiple occasions. Needless to say, it's all been worth it.

Before I reflect on lessons learned this academic-year, allow me to clear up a couple of logistical glitches from previous posts. As I announced a few weeks ago, The New Adjunct has merged with the Indianapolis-based organization Adjunct Matters. However, in my excitement of the merger, and decision to wait until the last possible minute to make the announcement and meet my blogging deadline, I have unfortunately misinterpreted some details. These details will be reflected in re-writes of the two entries previous to this one. These misinterpretations should not be a reflection of Adjunct Matters' professionalism, but rather, my own oversights. My sincerest apologies to the organization that has been so gracioius to welcome the efforts of The New Adjunct.

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