Re “When Science Leaps From the Page” (Novelties, Dec. 18), which looked at new electronic textbooks:

The column quotes a publishing executive as saying that his company’s e-textbook aims to take advantage of things that only digital media can do — and that it wants students to measure a chapter of a book not by how much they read but by how much they learn.

But I hope the publisher realizes that many students do not have computer access and that their success depends mostly on the availability of computers at their schools or local libraries.

As a 13-year-old, the idea of digital books as the future tool for learning makes me cringe. Although the article refers to college-level books, I have a strong feeling that high schools will soon follow suit. What is the alternative for those who can’t afford a computer, or who have one computer in the house that is shared by the whole family? It seems that success will be measured by who has and who has not, instead of by how much you can learn. Helen Kassa

San Jose, Calif., Dec. 18

The writer is an eighth-grade student at Moreland Middle School.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=d60cfa3998f98a84a966c163e18905ca