Wow, you can't make this shit up. I noticed this article on techdirt:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120921/14480320464/canadian-university-publisher-promise-to-fix-problems-with-art-history-book-that-has-no-photos.shtml

and found a photo of the book here:

http://www.ashleyit.com/blogs/brentashley/textbook-example1.png

That I can't embed due to copyright restrictions.

Here's the original article from techdirt:

Canadian University, Publisher Promise To Fix Problems With Art History Book That Has No Photosfrom the a-bit-late,-but... deptYou may recall the story we had earlier this week about Canadian University OCAD requiring students in an art history class to buy a $180 book
that didn't even have any images, because they couldn't properly
license them. Instead, it had big white boxes and students were
expected to go online to see the right images. Beyond the
ridiculousness of the situation itself, it was clear that there would be
no resale value at all for the book.



OCAD got in touch to let us know that they've now put out a statement on the situation
(pdf) in which they admit that the situation was far from ideal, and
they're taking steps to deal with it. The dean claims to have met with
the publisher, Pearson, who "was highly responsive." That's not too
surprising, given just how much attention that original story got. They
must have sensed that being on the wrong side of this one would not end
well. The plan now:

• Guaranteed end-of-term buy-back of the custom text (dollar amount to
  be announced next week); they want to take it out of circulation.


• Provision (free) of print copies of the Stokstad text (which
  contains the vast majority of missing images) to all students who have
  purchased the reader, to use as a print-based cross-reference; these
  would be the relevant volumes of the portable version of Stokstad (much
  easier to carry) – details on how this will roll out next week.

The pricing on the buyback may still be a concern, but clearly the loud
outcry and vast internet interest in the situation resulted in the
university and the publisher deciding that this whole thing was a
mistake. They probably should have realized that before pushing an art history book that had no images, but at least they're trying to make it right.

You really need to look at the image that I linked to in order to get an idea of how insane this is:
http://www.ashleyit.com/blogs/brentashley/textbook-example1.png


And, as usual, this page had really nice formatting and was easy to read until I clicked 'submit'.

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