He was carrying four heavy textbooks and a sheaf of papers under one arm, and let it all fall to the floor.

However the market shakes out, at the very least students may do themselves some ergonomic good by giving those old, heavy textbooks the slip.

Instead of lugging heavy textbooks to class, students can download individual chapters or entire digital textbooks to their personal computers and print them out.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - If Adrian Hartog has his way, college kids will be sporting tablet computers instead of backpacks loaded down with heavy textbooks.