亚马逊推出纸质教科书租赁业务

Amazon.com has launched a textbook rental service, allowing US students to borrow print editions for a school term at up to 70 per cent off the price of new titles, but the education industry is expecting the growth of rentals to slow.
亚马逊(Amazon)推出一项教科书租赁服务，允许美国学生每学期能以不超过新书售价70%的价格租用纸质教科书，但教育行业预计租赁业务的增长将会放缓。

Book Industry study Group research found that textbook rentals rose last year from 8 per cent of the market to 11 per cent, with a corresponding drop in new textbook sales, from 59 per cent to 55 per cent. There is also a sizeable second-hand market in textbooks.
美国图书工业研究会(Book Industry study Group)的研究表明，教科书租赁在整个教科书市场所占的份额已由去年的8%上升至11%，而新教科书销售的份额则相应从59%降至55%。此外，二手教科书市场的规模也相当可观。

Student Monitor, another research group, put rentals' penetration of the print textbook market at 13 per cent last year. Cengage, one of the largest US college publishers, predicted that this could double to 26 per cent by 2015 before flattening out.
另一家研究集团Student Monitor的调查显示，去年租赁对纸质教科书市场的渗透率达到13%。美国最大的高校教材出版商之一圣智学习出版公司(Cengage)预测，到2015年该比率可能翻一番，达到26%，之后增长将趋于平缓。

However, Cengage also forecast that rentals' impact on higher education revenues would fall from 5.2 per cent this year to just 0.8 per cent by 2015. "We're beginning to see textbook rentals peak," said Laura Ricci of Outsell, a publishing research firm.
然而，圣智学习出版公司也预测，到2015年，租赁在高等教育营收中的份额将由今年的5.2%下降至0.8%。出版研究公司Outsell的劳拉•瑞西(Laura Ricci )表示，"我们将开始看到教科书租赁达到顶峰。"

This is because publishers are increasingly using technology to enrich traditional textbooks, and students are finding it easier to sell their used texts online.
这是因为，出版商正越来越多地利用技术手段使传统教科书变得丰富多彩，而学生们也发现在网上出售二手书变得更容易。

"Users are beginning to expect more from textbook content [than] just words on a page," she said, pointing to the rise of interactive testing technology and other "full course solutions" as publishers such as Pearson, owner of the Financial Times, broaden their business models.
瑞西表示，"消费者开始希望教科书的每一页不仅出现文字，还要提供更多的内容。"她所指的是，随着英国《金融时报》的母公司培生集团(Pearson)等出版商拓宽其业务模式，交互测试技术和其他"全课程解决方案"正在兴起。

Existing textbook rental companies such as Chegg and BookRenter.com are diversifying, Ms Ricci added, saying they need not be threatened by Amazon.
瑞西补充道，齐格网(Chegg)和BookRenter.com等现有教科书租赁公司正在开展多元化经营，它们未必会受到亚马逊的威胁。