What Students Want

But while professors stress the benefits that will come from an increased use of sourcebooks and Murphy predicts a decreased cost, students are not as enthusiastic about the growing trend as some might think.

"I think that sourcebooks tend to be very detailed and peripheral to the subject matter," said Adriana E. Abdenur '97, who says she prefers a sourcebook in addition to a textbook. "One of my biggest gripes about all of the source materials is that they are very fragmented. It was only right before the final when I went to the library and checked out a textbook that I finally got a sense of the chronology of the period."

Carlton F.W. Larson '97 says he agrees with Abdenur's attitude towards sourcebooks, explaining that they are often too expensive and too comprehensive, making them both inconvenient and difficult to use as educational material.

"If I had to choose between a class with all sourcebooks or all textbooks, I'd choose all textbooks," Larson says. "There's something about having a solid amount of stuff you have to know."

But when a course lacks a single comprehensive text, the professor is not always responsible for that decision.

"Art history is one of those disciplines that is not built around the idea of textbooks for students that serve as introductions to the fields," says Professor of Fine Arts Norman Bryson. "There's only one course out of the zillions that we do in art history--Literature and Arts B-10 ["Art and Visual Culture: Introduction to the Historical Study of Art and Architecture"], the department's introductory class--that we have one text that could be seen as a textbook."

"Nine times out of 10, we have to devise our own sourcebooks which are probably not that different here at Harvard from the sourcebooks developed at other universities," Bryson adds.

In other instances, sourcebooks had to be employed when professors felt that suitable textbooks were not available.

"[Biological Sciences 10: "Introductory Molecular Biology"] principally depends on the sourcebook that I wrote and there is a textbook for supplemental readings," says Richard M. Losick, professor of molecular and cellular biology. "There isn't a textbook that corresponds to the nature of the course; one just doesn't exist."

"If there was a really good textbook that matched my view with the way the material should be taught, then I would use it," Losick says, adding that sourcebooks are very time-consuming things to write. "A well-done textbook would be highly welcome."

How Long Is Too Long?

Besides the nature of the text selected, professors say that the length of their course's reading list is just as important.

"At Harvard, we tend to use the most challenging and up-to-date materials, and that's a characteristic of universities like this," says Kishlansky, who says that his reading lists have grown shorter over the years as more and more students complain about their length.

"But we don't compromise much about the material we use," Kishlansky adds. "We expect the students to handle this and we don't water it down."