![]() In 2010, the Libraries partnered with the NCSU Physics Department to license a physics textbook used for all introductory physics courses. Our textbook lending program is designed to address an immediate burden of the cost of textbooks and learning materials on our students, but we also have taken steps to address the culture of faculty and departments assigning expensive textbooks to students by initiating library collaborations with faculty, students, and external partners to provide free or lower cost alternatives to traditional textbooks. Textbooks are added to a “Textbook Collection” in our integrated library system (ILS) and interfiled with our traditional course reserves, available for a two-hour checkout in each library (Thompson, Cross, Rigling, & Vickery, 2017). In the first year of the program, the Libraries purchased approximately 1,200 textbooks to seed the collection, and after the success of the pilot, we have continued to purchase around 700 textbooks each year. This program ensures that any student who does not have the funds to purchase a textbook can have access to the textbook through the Libraries. In partnership with the NCSU Bookstores, the Libraries committed to purchasing at least one copy of every required textbook for fall and spring semester classes and made them available to students for a short-term loan. Our initial efforts date back to a 2009 student-led proposal submitted to our University Library Committee, which led the NCSU Libraries to pilot a textbook lending program. Library Support for Textbook Affordability This chapter details our efforts to not only encourage the use of open educational resources on our campus, but also to understand how our students were navigating the information marketplace, and to educate and empower our students to leverage the rise of open culture into meaningful and sustainable support for open education. As the space on campus where students, faculty, the campus bookstore, and others can meet to work collaboratively, the Libraries have a unique opportunity to meet our own stated mission to be the “competitive advantage” for students working to navigate this challenging textbook marketplace. ![]() As a science, technology, engineering, and math ( STEM)-focused institution, NCSU must balance this commitment against the high cost of STEM textbooks, which are often significantly more expensive than textbooks for humanities courses. As a large public land-grant institution, NCSU has a deep commitment to welcoming all students, particularly first-generation students and those from underrepresented populations. Textbook affordability has been a priority for the North Carolina State University ( NCSU) Libraries for the better part of the past decade. Lillian Rigling & William Cross Introduction 9 Getting to Know You: How We Turned Community Knowledge into Open Advocacy ![]()
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