Library Ebook Affordable Content Programs
Niamh Wallace and Sara Filion
by Sara Filion and Niamh Wallace (both from the University of Arizona) (bios)
Introduction
Within the broader public discourse on the rising costs of higher education, the issue of textbook prices seems to have struck a particular chord[1]. This spotlight on the textbook—and on the publishing models that drive its production and sale—has opened a conversation on possible alternatives to costly course materials and prompted interest in a larger-scale look at what faculty assign (or could assign) as required reading at the college level.
Enter academic libraries, which have long supported the research content needs of their campus users, and are now beginning to put effort behind curricular content as well. Situated as they are within the ecosystems of scholarly publishing and higher education, academic libraries have substantial ability, and incentive, to align collections with course content. Beyond advocating for the use of digital library content—such as journal articles, ebooks, and primary sources—in place of print textbooks, librarians have also been involved in campus open educational resource (OER) efforts—all in service of ensuring that students have equitable and affordable access to the materials they need for academic success, and proving value in doing so. Collaborating with institutional partners, such as campus bookstores, to implement and support affordable course material programs is a key factor to their success[2]. These partnerships provide an opportunity to redesign how required course content is delivered to students, and what form that content takes.
At the University of Arizona Libraries (UAL), we are fortunate to have such a partnership with our bookstore, and, like many fellow academic libraries, we take a multi-pronged approach to supporting affordable textbook initiatives. Our Open Education Librarian coordinates campus-wide efforts on the creation and adoption of OERs. We also work with the bookstore on a different initiative, though one with the same goal: Rather than focus on supplying print textbooks or course reserves, we chose to put effort into providing ebook access to as many course-assigned texts as possible. In this way, we’re able to supply students with free and universal access to course content, offsetting some of the costs associated with enrollment. Over the duration of this program, our library has maintained the ability to make multi-user ebooks available for an average of 20% of the materials that faculty submit to our bookstore as course adoption titles.
Drawing on several years’ worth of textbook adoption data, this chapter examines and discusses curricular content trends at the UA, including trends in content reuse, adoption of scholarly monographs for course use, and shifts in the types of materials that appear on UA’s textbook adoption list over time.
Equally important, this project has allowed a glimpse of the kind of mater