The Library’s Role in the
Changing World of Textbooks:
Where do we go from here?
Emily Ray, Metadata and Discovery Services Librarian
Ottenheimer Library, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Why Textbooks?
• Acknowledged increasing cost of textbooks
• Seen as a burden on students and preventing learning
• Seized popular imagination outside the library, university : state
legislatures interested, state PIRG groups, media
• Covered by the media, while the academic journal price
increases or the academic press crisis ignored
• Textbook costs easier to address than the rising cost of tuition
and higher education
Why Libraries?
• More options from growth of OER
• Academic libraries increasingly more formally involved with
teaching and learning, looking at supporting retention
• Libraries historically provide access to content, decide when
content worth purchasing
What I’ll talk about…
• My library’s pilot with purchasing textbooks
• Two other libraries that purchased print and e-textbooks
• Three library led projects to incentivize faculty to select OER
textbooks- what happened
• OER content vs Textbooks
• Who is making the decisions?
• What libraries can do….
UALR’s experience
• University of Arkansas at Little Rock
• Part of the UA system
• Metropolitan university, not flagship
• Declining enrollment, many non-traditional students, working
full or part time, going back to school
• Current enrollment, 8,902 – includes undergraduates, graduate
students, PhD programs in Engineering, Computer science
• Library budget cuts last two fiscal years
Approached by the Provost…
• Summer 2014 Provost asked then library directory if library can
provide access to textbooks
• In exit surveys, students indicate money is a major reason in
withdrawing from UALR
• This does fit with the literature identifying that students will not
purchase textbooks if they can’t afford them
• Library was given no additional funds for this project, but can’t
really say no, either…
Our Process
• Prior to this UALR did not purchase textbooks as a policy, did add
personal copies to reserves
• Collections team was briefed
• Brief literature review
• Surveyed our peers if they were purchasing textbooks
• Allotted $2,000 for a pilot from materials budget, our materials
budget, $1.4m, spent a total of $16,900 on monographsincluding textbooks in Fy1415
• Planned goals and priorities
Title
Theater: The Lively Art 8th Edition
Essential World History 7th ed.
Item name
Library copy 1
Library copy 2
Library copy 1
Library copy 2
Ways of the World 2nd edition
Library copy 1
Library copy 2
Library copy 3
Biology: Concepts and Applications 9th editionLibrary copy 1
Library copy 2
Libarry copy 3
Psychology tenth edition (David G. Myers 978-1-4292-6178-4)
Library copy 1
Library copy 2
Library copy 3
College Algebra (Robert Blitzer)
Library copy 1
Library copy 2
Library copy 3
Communication in a civil society
Library copy 1
Library copy 2
Library copy 3
Hole's Human Anatomy & Physiology
Library copy 1
Fundamentals of General, Organic and Biological
Library
Chemistry
copy 17th ed.]
Chemistry in Focus
Library copy 1
Chemistry & chemical reactivity (9th ed)
Library copy 1
Item #
Fall 2014 Spring 2015
i19680168
21
34
i1968017x
22
30
i19680181
i19680193
i1968020x
i19680211
i19680223
i19680272
i19680326
i19680351
i19680405
i19680417
i19680429
i19680430
i19680442
i19680454
i19680466
i19680478
i1968048x
i1971371x
i19713721
i19713733
i19713745
22
25
33
42
36
8
18
7
9
33
12
5
0
5
17
0
6
0
0
0
0
36
44
109
96
107
27
33
21
24
43
20
7
0
19
40
16
52
43
14
4
43
University of Texas San Antonio- Larger
institution
• Previously receiving requests, had purchased some textbooks
• Fall 2014- identified as textbooks, routing to reserves
• E-preferred, buying print when requested
• Unlimited multi user if possible, 2 or 3 user; if many turnaways
purchase 2nd copy
• Have been updating with most recent edition- is getting
expensive
• Put this program in their Annual Report- student retention is a
concern
University of Central Arkansas
• State institution, not part of UA system
• Residential, traditional aged students, library open 24 hr a day
• Budget of $10,000 a year for textbooks
• Get a list of all textbooks for the semester, run against their
holding and ebsco e-book availability- e-book preferred, multi
user
• “Gratifying” to work with faculty, “hugely popular” with
students
Other options than buying print…
• OER textbooks are the most prominent new idea
• Introduced at UNESCO’s 2002 Forum on Open Courseware
• Defined as “teaching, learning, and research resources that
reside in the public domain or have been released under an
intellectual property license that permits free use and repurposing by others. Open education resources include full
courses, course materials, or techniques used to support access
to knowledge “
• Frequently under a Creative commons license
MERLOT
Fresno State portal
Florida Orange Grove
SCSU- Libguide OER teaching materials
SUNY Open Textbooks
Additional titles….
UCLA Affordable Course Materials
Initiative
• Grants to motivate faculty to participate, more $ for larger
enrollment
• Variety of disciplines participated
• Interest in library purchasing or licensing content, or digitizing
their own holdings
• UCLA sees as part of a process of aligning collections more
closely with teaching, a different process than acquiring for
research needs and interests
NCSU Alt-Textbook Project
• Similar grant program, with a workshop for faculty interested
• Mix of undergrads, grad courses, STEM heavy
• First year, 9 of the 11 winners were creating their own content
• Willing to use less “open” resources, when the cost savings are
really high
• Quote of $200,000 calculated from number of students times
cost of unpurchased textbook
• Grants used to purchase content, not library funds
Request for Service
– Faculty to build
eVersity core curriculum courses
Responses Due: December 5, 2014
Course Requirements: Courses developed for the eVersity will share several common design elements.
In addition to faculty authored course content, all courses will include the following:



Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): All courses will meet all the requirements of the ADA.
Course Length: Courses will be six weeks in length.
Course Syllabus: Courses will have a syllabus which includes student learning outcomes,
assessment requirements, grading rubrics, course policies, due dates and other required course
elements.

Course Materials: It is assumed that the courses in this request can be
developed using open educational resources (OER). More information on
this point is provided elsewhere in this request.

Interactive Features: All courses will feature elements that foster engagement between the
instructor and the student and between students.
Scalable: All courses will be designed to accommodate growing numbers of students.

Specification of Employment Competencies: All eVersity courses will feature employment focused
competencies (e.g., critical thinking, team work, leadership, communication skills, etc.).
State legislatures looking at textbook
prices
• California***
• Connecticut- creating a consortium to assess, promote,
collaborate for developing Open Source textbooks
• Ohio – eliminating sales tax on textbooks
• South Carolina- mandating 2 years of adoption for upper level
divisions, 3 years for lower level divisions to ensure student buy
back value
CA OER Council 15 Month Progress
Report
• “The primary focus of the CA-OER Council is to complete the
reviews and move our focus toward faculty adoption of OER
texts. The goal hasn’t changed. What has changed is our
understanding of the obstacles to OER adoption. “
• January 2014-March 2015 15 month progress reports- most
detailed
Ripped from the headlines…
• Cal State Fullerton Professor reprimanded for selecting less
expensive proprietary and OER text combo
• Whose Academic Freedom? Department or Professor? Other?
• Who decides?
Summing up….
• Purchasing textbooks or incentivizing OER
• Still helping students by removing textbook costs
• Immediate help or structural rethinking
• Costs shifted to the library or elsewhere
• Long term viability and scale?
Where do we (librarians)go from here?
• Libraries have significant expertise and can guide faculty and
universities through this process
• Best to be aware as costs are removed from students, might be
passed on to the library or other work eg. digitization created
Citations
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Popken, Ben. (2015, August 15) College Textbook Prices Have Risen 1,041 Percent Since 1977. NBC News. http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/freshman-year/collegetextbook-prices-have-risen-812-percent-1978-n399926
Porcaro, Mark. (2013, January 7)) Educause/Internet2 Etext Pilot:
UALR Core Curriculum http://ualr.edu/advising/home/major/core/
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
MERLOT https://www.merlot.org/
Fresno State Affordable learning solutions http://fresnostate.edu/academics/als/textbooks.html
Florida Orange Grove http://florida.theorangegrove.org/og/access/hierarchy.do?topic=d37c6ed5-3822-84a6-721c-6d9033a88541&q=&sort=rank&page=1
Open Access Resources: Teaching Materials Hilton C. Buley Library Southern Connecticut State University http://libguides.southernct.edu/c.php?g=7150&p=34680
Open Textbooks SUNY http://textbooks.opensuny.org/
*UMass Amherst
Affordable Course Materials Initiative http://www.library.ucla.edu/about/collections/collection-development-initiatives/affordable-course-materials-initiative
Conversation with Dawn Setzer, UCLA
Alt Textbook Project http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/alttextbook
Emails with Will Cross, NCSU
Partnership for Affordable Content https://www.lib.umn.edu/elearning/partnership/awards and
https://www.lib.umn.edu/elearning/partnership
Emails with Shane Nackerund, UMN
e-Versity University of Arkansas System http://eversity.uasys.edu/
e-Versity email communication
California SB 1052 and 1053 http://icas-ca.org/coerc Progress reports
Reprimanded for Assigning Affordable Textbooks? (2015, Oct 21) Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/10/21/reprimandedassigning-affordable-textbooks
Jaschik, Scott. Can a Professor Be Forced to Assign a $180 Textbook? (2015, Oct 26) Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/10/26/disputerequired-math-textbook-escalates-broader-debate-about-costs-and-academic
Thank You!