Oct 10, 2019 By: yunews
![Flat style illustration with shadows. Weiger with books on one side and money on the other side.](/sites/default/files/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2019/09/glassman_textbooks_02_FI_600.jpg)
Paul Glassman
Director of University Libraries![Paul Glassman, Director of University Libraries](/sites/default/files/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2019/01/Glassman_Paul_New_300.jpg)
Power to the People (i. e., the Authors) How can academic institutions and their libraries address this need in their efforts to help students succeed? In several states, open education resources (OER) are part of a textbook revolution: faculty members create textbooks that are free and that can be edited and revised freely. In 2009, MIT faculty were the first to adopt an open-access policy, awarding faculty the right to share their scholarly production openly and without the commercial intervention of publishers. Available in formats such as PDF and EPUB, textbooks produced as OER can also be bound and sold at nominal cost at college bookstores if there is a groundswell of demand for print versions. All this results from the premise that knowledge and expertise are community resources, their production having been supported by institutions of higher learning for centuries. OER embrace the premise that academic knowledge and expertise in the classroom is no longer property to be guarded, re-packaged and sold by commercial publishers for profit. But books, even if their content is uncopyrighted, do not write themselves, nor does their content appear magically. Which conditions foster the textbook revolution? Several factors need to be in place for this critical innovation to launch: institutional awareness about the need to adopt this type of resource and about the benefits of OER; financial incentives or professional development funds to potential authors; and willing partners. In this last regard, academic libraries, as centers of content, preservation, and teaching, may take on a pivotal role in OER efforts.[4] Typically, authors share their instructional materials as OER by selecting a Creative Commons license, which renders the work free to use. Authors can still retain copyright when they license their work with Creative Commons.[5] Although progress has been made in large publicly supported institutions (e.g., University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Minnesota), smaller institutions may need to adopt a more incremental, grassroots approach.[6]
Digital Alternatives Another solution to the problem of textbook affordability is digital alternatives, such as e-books and other electronic materials, resources already owned or licensed by academic libraries. In collaboration with faculty members, librarians can employ their knowledge and subject specialties to curate digital alternatives for students. Since nearly all periodical literature and a growing amount of monographic material are acquired in electronic format, this solution not only features simultaneous access but also offers the benefit of a multiplicity of voices and diversity of perspectives not possible with a single textbook. As a result, faculty members can “flip” their courses from requiring costly commercial textbooks to using subscription resources (periodical literature, electronic reference sources and relevant chapters from electronic books) commonly made available via the academic libraries of those institutions through consortial agreements.
Conclusion Academic libraries are not only aggregators of information and knowledge. When they are at the center of OER initiatives and digital alternatives, academic libraries can also catalyze the creation and curation of new instructional materials to be shared globally and thus revolutionize student learning. References [1] Ethan Senack, Fixing the Broken Textbook Market: How Students Respond to High Textbook Costs and Demand Alternatives (Boston: The Student PIRGs, 2014). [2] Survey of Academic Library Upper Management: View of the Library Role in Providing Textbooks (New York: Primary Research Group, 2018). [3] Library Journal, Textbook Affordability Survey Report (New York: Library Journal, 2019), p. 3. [4] Erin Davis, Dory Cochran, Britt Fagerheim & Becky Thoms, “Enhancing Teaching and Learning: Libraries and Open Educational Resources in the Classroom,” Public Services Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 1, p. 26. [5] Melissa Falldin and Karen Lauritsen, Authoring Open Textbooks (Minneapolis: Open Textbook Network, ca. 2018), p. 9. [6] Jeremy Smith, “Seeking Alternatives to High-Cost Textbooks: Six Years of The Open Education Initiative at the University of Massachusetts Amherst,” in Jonathan Lashley, Andrew Wesolek, and Anne Langley, OER: A Field Guide for Academic Librarians (Forest Grove, Oregon: Pacific University Press, 2018), pp. 333-350.