Textbook affordability initiatives democratize knowledge, access, and opportunities, bringing equity into the classroom. Despite often lacking permanent funding, librarians report an increase in both the number and scope of affordability initiatives across the United States. In this webinar, we report findings from surveys and interviews conducted with academic librarians that explored their workflows, considerations, strategies, and alignment with institutional mission. Find out why librarians undertake this work, the details and divergences of their workflows–from obtaining, verifying, and cleaning textbook data, identifying and licensing textbooks, notifying users and providing access, assessing the projects–and changes they have made to optimize textbook affordability workflows.
Join Mitchell Scott, Coordinator of Collection Strategies at the University of Kentucky, and Rachel Scott, Associate Dean for Information Assets at Illinois State University, for a presentation on their research findings. As they write in their article, A Comprehensive Study of Library-Led Textbook Affordability Initiatives in the United States:
It is time to shout it from the mountaintops: libraries buy textbooks! Not only can libraries buy textbooks, but mounting evidence also shows that library provisioning of assigned materials is good stewardship, promotes student learning, and fosters important campus collaborations for academic libraries.
