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Uncategorized Tuesday, September 18th 2012 at 12:35 pm

University Sells Students $180 Art Textbook That Has No Art, Somehow Not Joking

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One would think that the study of art might require some, well, art to study. The people calling the shots at OCAD University would disagree, however. The textbook this year for one of the university’s art courses, titled “Global Visual and Material Culture: Prehistory to 1800,” costs a whopping $180 and — in all seriousness — includes no art whatsoever. The kicker? It’s required for every student taking the class.

This tidbit comes courtesy of Brent Ashley, who has a daughter starting at OCAD University this fall. The whole kerfuffle revolves around the fact that, apparently, the publisher couldn’t get the rights to the images in time and thus went ahead and printed the book. Barring the fact that art that old should, you know, be in the public domain in the first place, the decision to continue on despite the lack of images just boggles the mind.

Ashley’s post explains:

This year, however, the textbook for Global VISUAL and Material Culture has no pictures. Students have been told that the publisher couldn’t get the copyright permissions settled in time for the print run, so students will have to read the book, and see the pictures online by following along on their computer.

There is no discount on the $180 price for an ART textbook that has NO PICTURES. Devoid of pictures. Bereft of art. If I am going to have to pay $180 for an art history book that is of no resale value to next year’s students, it had damn well better be an excellent visual reference with hard cover and full colour plates, to keep around for years, festooning my coffee table and that of my heirs.

There’s not even a discount involved, and the course next year won’t even use it so it’s basically worthless after the class is over. Good job, folks.

(Brent Ashley via Techdirt, image via Colton Witt)

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  • Steven

    At first I thought it was more of a “social commentary” sort of thing in which the point was that college textbooks are obscenely overpriced and, from what it seems for the most part, useless when it comes to the actual coursework involved.

  • http://www.facebook.com/foiled.again33 Beck Tron

    …I hope this company also obtained the electronic publication rights of these images before sending the readers online to see them. Otherwise, they might have more to worry about than the decision to print an image-less art textbook.

  • http://www.facebook.com/foiled.again33 Beck Tron

    … Why would a publisher have to pay rights for material it already owns? This custom text was made from parts of books that are owned by the publisher’s larger company. … I hope they have the electronic publication rights.

  • Josh

    hey thats my school AND class looool

  • Robert

    The amount of money that students are forced to pay for books is insane. I would expect to see books of very high quality for the price we must pay for them. Instead I get a $150 paperback astronomy book which looks like crap after lugging it around for a semester, and a $140 calculus book which after only a month of use already has noticeable wear on the cover. It boggles my mind that for these prices I can’t get a really good quality book that can sit on my book case for the rest of my life!

  • Al

    My wife teaches art history at a major university. She develops the course and chooses the text book to use each year. Hence the tons of free college text books we receive in the mail every semester.
    My question, why is the head of the art department choosing this book and publisher in particular? Just speculating, but sounds like someone has their hand in the cookie jar…