eReader Textbooks? A Paradigm in need of traction

I just had a flash occur. One of those “ah ha!” moments. Schools are struggling with budgets. Textbooks eat away huge amounts of money each year which could be spent on other things.
What is a new paradigm existed for textbooks? Maybe it already does.
Read, Write Web reports that Kindle books now outsell print bestsellers.
What if we changed how schools deliver textbook materials?
What if books were made available to students digitally? What if, for now, schools that purchased hard copies were able to “sell” digital copies to the public to recoop part of the cost? Or maybe, to extend the paradigm, that the resources used to print the paper copies were replaced with school issued digital licenses to each student?
It raises equity issues, sure. But maybe, just maybe, we can move this idea along faster if we embraced it.

Maybe we need to start thinking of the 22nd century now, as Will Richardson, educational blogger has recently pointed out in a Tweet, since educational change takes so long.