From the Curriculum Director
To keep older courses up-to-date, the Curriculum Development Department pays attention to advances in the world of natural health and holistic nutrition and also reacts quickly when a book suddenly changes edition or becomes unavailable. This happens all too frequently. Although publishers have always needed a profit base, in times past they seemed to keep worthy—but perhaps less profitable—books available to the public. Often that motive seems absent today. Wonderful books can be introduced, stay for a year or two and disappear.
Books going out of print are not our only problems. We all swim in a sea of information that grows deeper and broader every year—prompting publishers to revise books and, therefore, us to revise study guides. This is often a happy problem because we strive for excellence; nonetheless, it is a challenge.
Changes to a text are signaled by a change in edition, including a new International Standard Book Number (ISBN). We depend on this system for cues about when to update, but sometimes publishers make revisions without changing to new editions. Unfortunately, we usually find out about these from students who have discovered discrepancies between their assignments and the text, and not always immediately after the revision occurred. This happened recently with a book that has long been in one of our courses. The content was not changed, but the pagination was revised. Because the ISBN remained the same, we were unaware of the difference until a student noti- fied us, which initiated a course revision. Although we do everything possible to assure that books and study guides agree, once in a while we receive an unpleasant surprise like this one. When we hear such a report, we attack any problems immediately.
Krista Leamon
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