Saving paper and wasting money, the Princeton way

TechRadar reported today on Princeton's pilot project for cutting down on paper usage by using Kindle e-books for course readings. Looks like we were right in our predictions earlier this week, but mistaken about one thing: the hardware. The project plans to use the new Kindle DX, released by Amazon today.The awkwardly-titled "Toward Print-Less and Paper-Less Courses: Pilot Amazon Kindle Program" aims "to encourage students to work with documents online rather than rely on printing." The University News reports that the initiative is funded under the auspices of the University's Sustainability Plan.The project basically looks like this:

Under the pilot, the reading materials for three courses due to start in the autumn will be loaded on Kindle DX devices. Participating students and faculty members in the selected courses will receive a free DX that they will be allowed to keep.

It's a noble and ambitious move, sure, and apparently not all that expensive (at an actually reasonable $30,000 price tag for the University and no fee for participating students), but come on, this thing is going to fall flat on its face.Reasons why after the jump.1.) The Kindle DX has extremely limited note-taking capabilities.Um, the ability to take notes on paper is the foremost, if not the only, reason anyone ever prints stuff out anyway. Few people ever read their course work on their computers, and it's highly doubtful people will resort to using the DX's thumb keyboard. That no one took this into consideration when making the pilot program is kind of ludicrous and the main reason the project will probably turn out to be a waste.2.) Most students carry around their computers anyway.If students really did want to cut down on printing and stare at a pretty, glossy surface all day, they could just turn to their MacBooks instead of a less-functional version of the same thing. Because, really, the Kindle DX is just a glorified computer screen at this point. Why carry around two pieces of technology when you could just carry one that was multi-functional?But alright, if you're optimistic and think kids will actually cut down on printing, maybe there is an economic justification to be made, as TechRadar hints:

Last year, Princeton printed 50 million sheets of paper at the cost of $5 million (£3.3 million) and 25,000 trees. If e-readers can cut down that printing by 1 per cent, Princeton will have more than made up for what was spent on this pilot.

Well, someone has to be the guinea pig, right? Why not us?