Esteban,
In my early days of teaching, I attempted to adopt books from several
European publishers. Often, I'd seen a review of the book, and wondered
if it would 'fit' into my courses, and if the price was reasonable.
As I found, the vagaries of the publishing industry, along with some
copyright regulations, can present a daunting challenge to someone who
wishes to adopt a non-U.S. publication for classroom use. There are a
number of costs involved.
Several problems became readily apparent. For one thing, many
publishers would not answer my letters, or would do so, many months
later. For those who did respond, they wanted full payment, in their
currency, for shipping and handling, as well as the cost of the
publication. My department did not have a book budget, so any
purchasing had to be made out of my personal funds.
For one outstanding publication in personnel, the publisher would not
answer any of my letters. The publication was by an European branch of
a U.S.-headquartered publisher. I mentioned my frustrations to the
publisher's representative who visited my (then) campus, several times a
year. One day, a copy of the book arrived at my home address, in a
plain brown wrapper. I quickly saw why there was no return address. A
note, that was inside the cover of the book, indicated that the book was
not to be sold or otherwise distributed in the United States! To the
best of my knowledge, a U.S. version of the book was never published.
Today, as you might know, it is not unusual to find that certain
publications may not be purchased from non-U.S. publications sales
sites, e.g., Amazon.com (non-U.S. sites), for shipment to the U.S. For
one publication, two years ago, I was told to contact the U.S.
distribution site, but the publisher was initially unable to provide
either an address or a telephone number for such as site! On the web, I
found a possible distributor, who took two weeks to answer my email
message, but who only sent a URL, with no link to the publication in
which I was interested.
And, those many years ago, I found that my (then) campus bookstore was
not willing to tackle the problems associated with ordering a textbook
from a non-U.S. source. For that matter, they were not even willing to
order a textbook that was published in Hawaii, because of the shipping
costs! They were also unwilling to cope with the problems of currency
exchange rates, for prices in European currencies.
The situation may have changed for the better, but I've not bothered to
investigate the situation as it exists today. You are correct; there
are some very interesting perspectives in certain non-U.S. textbooks,
but the distribution system presents quite a few barriers to faculty at
small campuses.
George Cole
Shippensburg University