[nabs-l] obtaining electronic texts

[bookwormahb at earthlink.net]

Hi all,

I am a part time student at northern virginia community college, nova, which is the largest community college in VA.  It has several campuses.  I’m at one of the larger ones
Well, I am rather surprised at the procedure for obtaining electronic books through the disability office who gets them via the publisher.
What does your school do?
This is some continuing education for me.
In my undergraduate studies, I would obtain the book, give a copy of the receit to DSS, and they would give me a CD; the text was in word format by chapter.  
Yet at nova they want proof of purchase but then the ebook comes in a downloadable link from the dss counselor.  
You click on a link, save it to the computer, and click on the link to get it downloaded from the internet and it’s a zipped file.

I found this weird.  The unfair thing is the link requires you to download an “expander” something that will unzip the file.
You can only download a trial version of the expander for a certain period of time and then have to pay for it; so the next book I get from DSS will not be unzippable from online because the expander, stuff it, is a free trial for thirty days.

This is a mess and I don’t see why the dss counselor can’t get a CD or better yet download the book, unzip it and put it on a CD!
I opened the book and its unreadable junk so I’m trying to get another download link from the dss counselor.

Ashley