A student walks into a bookstore desiring to purchase books essential to academic participation. Name your course. The store already has been notified by the university which classes require which books. Then the student notices the price. $200 for a required book, for a required class, written by the professor and offered exclusively at a local store. The student doesn’t even have to worry about selling the book back at the end of the semester in most cases because a slightly different edition will be used the following year.

The frustration with the university textbook purchasing process, in many cases as old as the attended university itself, is something that nearly is a universal college experience in the United States. However, whether universities, textbook publishers or book stores consent or not, change is coming soon.

During the past three years, many American universities have tried to encourage the sale of electronic textbooks and other learning materials. Indiana University, the first to pilot a program with the explicit purpose of using electronic textbooks, did so for the stated purposes of environmental preservation and decreased cost. Nik Osbourne, information technology chief of staff at Indiana University, proudly reported to the press that purchased electronic textbooks mandated by the school cost about half the price as printed textbooks.

In October 2012, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan went as far as to declare printed textbooks will and should become obsolete before 2016. Duncan warned the nation that digital educational information is the future of worldwide education and the U.S. must adopt a similar course to remain competitive.

The possibilities are exciting. Instant updates, interactive graphics, networked communication with the professor and other students and the ability to take, share and save notes are among the promises that, once cleanly implemented, will undoubtedly induce student support for electronic textbooks.

If colleges and textbook distributors nationwide have not yet seen the writing on the wall, they soon will. Universities and textbook publishers who are slow to adapt risk more than world academic rankings; they risk profit.

As any newspaper publisher, music-industry record executive or movie director will tell you: The seamless transfer of data provided by existing, evolving technology is quickly rendering the sale of physical data a thing of the past.

The data of an electronic textbook uploads and downloads just as easily as the data of a song or video — all that is missing is the hardware. As soon as the first electronic textbook reader is proven an economic success, the independent programming options are limitless. A giant, illegal, free wealth of information is about to form in cyberspace, and there are no battles that publishers, retailers or universities can fight that music executives and film producers haven’t been fighting for a decade with little success.

The textbook industry, and its relationship with universities, must adapt lest it be overrun by truly unimpeded Internet piracy, swapping a potential market for enormous profit loss. Soon, public awareness, adaptation and application of the possibilities of electronic textbooks will force radical change.

Without proper policy, infrastructure and prepared faculty members, a university will be woefully unprepared to maintain any control over textbook sales and usage.

Perhaps the most harmful result of inaction would be the inability to harness the wealth of new academic options electronic textbooks offer an academic institution.

The only real decisions retailers, publishers and universities face are in what ways adapt to the change to electronic textbooks. Electronic textbooks soon will demand compatibility with university infrastructure, and will require something far different from the already problem-riddled ANGEL to be effective.

To thrive in what the future world of textbooks surely will be, universities must be aware of the impending change and start to develop strategies to incorporate the new technology into curriculum while ensuring equal access for all students.

As a university, we must embrace electronic textbooks.

For students, low cost, instantly accessible textbooks with far greater functionality soon will be available. It would be negligent and unwise of a university to not begin to adapt for the inevitable — a society where information is (closer to) free.

Tyler Gross is a guest columnist at The State News and a social relations and policy junior. Reach him at grosstyl@msu.edu.