Professors select readings for their students in different forms: printed matter, including books and journals; print-on-demand texts; and online material. Before long, enough books and articles will be available for downloading onto devices like the Sony Reader and Amazon.com's new Kindle to make that format another option. They consider a wide range of issues as they select materials and formats, including ease of access and use; the importance of continual updating; and, of course, price. But one kind of information they need as they make their choices is often hard to come by: the environmental cost of material. Even though academics read books, write books, and order books for their courses, few of them know much about environmental issues in book publishing. Yet they can play an important role in making publishers more environmentally responsible. Because recycling efforts have raised awareness of the environmental costs of producing and using paper, the destruction of forests and the pollution of waterways with toxic chemicals are probably the first ones to occur to a professor. Publishers--both university and trade presses--participating in the Green Press Initiative are reviewing their environmental impacts and making changes designed to reduce damage, like requiring printers to use more recycled paper, working toward eliminating the use of fiber from endangered forests, and avoiding paper bleached with chlorine.