QUOTED: An OCAD U father complaining about his daughter’s $180 pictureless art history textbook

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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.

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— Brent Ashley, the father of a new OCAD University student, blogging about the mandatory $180 textbook required for his daughter’s art history class. Turns out the book in question contains no pictures, something you’d think would be pretty important for a course called “Global Visual and Material Culture.” Not to worry, though: further investigation reveals that each page references the URL of the ebook version, which does include pictures (securing the print rights would apparently cost over $800, according to OCAD U). Ashley goes on to call the book “an unmitigated sham of a travesty of a mockery of a hand-drawn facsimile of a textbook.” Unsurprisingly, this story has gone viral. [Brent Ashley]