At a few select campuses, you can now place an order and have a machine convert digital files into books. This represents a new model for the publishing industry: instead of publishers printing thousands of copies and hoping someone purchases it, an item is only printed when it already has a buyer. You cannot print any book. Copyright laws govern what can be printed. The books must be out of copyright, or the copyright holder must give permission for reprinting. Files to be printed must be in pdf format. Thus far, thousands of books of varying origins have been printed. Some professors have ordered out of print textbooks to keep costs low for their students, some have ordered classics with their own handwritten notes in the margin. This system takes advantage of two business models that have proven very successful on the Internet. The build to order model was a great part of Dell’s early success. The idea of the long tail, responsible for much of Amazon’s success, also plays into this: if you don’t have to worry about storage space, you can earn a lot of money by catering to niche interests. You can read more about the Espresso Book Machine in  New Machines reproduce Custom Books on Demand appearing in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The Chronicle is one of the many publications available to the Poly community on the Dibner Library's eBooks, EJournals page.  Type "textbooks" into the Polythinkers Pad search box to find more posts about the state of textbook publishing.