A few years back I was working for a supplier to academic libraries, who also did a lot of ebook sales to this market. In my final days there they were just st

A few years back I was working for a supplier to academic libraries, who also did a lot of ebook sales to this market. In my final days there they were just starting to get interest from some institutions who wanted to buy Sony eBook Readers (as the best devices then on the market) preloaded with 30-50 books, then dish these out to students on some high-cost courses. They felt the students would prefer this (a not unreasonable belief with that volume of material) and it'd be easier for them to manage. So, yes, this sort of device (in the broad sense) will very likely replace textbooks at least partially. I saw it happening first hand a few years ago and see no reason it should have slowed down since.