The Vision Behind Akadémos
We believe every student has a right to affordable educational materials. We also believe schools—in order to meet their educational mission and accommodate their students’ preferences—should have new choices in delivering those materials.
That’s why we’ve created a full-service online solution that delivers huge savings on textbooks and other course materials while providing administrators and faculty with critical control over the process. By offering a service students want to use, schools can build and maintain loyalty within the student community.
With Akadémos, students save at your bookstore—now and in the future, as we continue to introduce new media and distribution options to meet increasing demands for affordability, accessibility, convenience, and successful learning.
The History Behind Akadémos
As both a student and a professor of political philosophy at Cornell University, Brian Jacobs saw first-hand how the exorbitant costs and complexity of textbook distribution weakened classroom learning. Many students were unable to find or afford the books they needed, often coming to class without the required texts. Professor Jacobs knew there had to be a better way. Working with a leading team of educators and technologists, he founded Akadémos in the summer of 1999. More than a decade later, his vision of a full-service Virtual Bookstore and Marketplace has become the model for the efficient, cost-effective purchasing and distribution platform of new and used textbooks.
The Roots of Akadémos
Akadémos was an olive grove outside of ancient Athens named for a Greek war hero. It is the site where Plato founded his famous school of philosophy and is the source of the English word “academy.” Akadémos is often thought of as the birthplace of Western philosophy, scientific reason, and some of our most cherished ideas about justice and the free exchange of ideas. Our name is a constant reminder as to the importance of our mission: to empower individuals and institutions for successful learning.
