12 things to know about reducing the cost of textbooks to faculty and students
We know textbooks are outrageously expensive. The Library cares.
What can a faculty member do?
- The University must provide students with the ISBN and retail price for textbooks assigned so they can shop around for the best prices on their textbooks by federal law. Faculty members should be aware of the cost.
- Request the print textbook to be put on Reserves in the library, we will buy it for Reserves.
- They can teach out of an older edition, where the cost of the textbook is greatly reduced online or in campus bookstores.
- They assign a textbook or readings out of Open Educational Resources.
- They can forgo a textbook and just link to readings from university licensed databases.
What faculty should NOT do?
- Do not use more than a very short excerpt from a textbook or workbook on a course website since uploading materials created for the educational market is not likely to be a fair use.
What can a student do?
- Rent the textbook from the bookstore or publisher.
- Split the cost of the textbook with someone in the class.
- Buy an older edition of the textbook and talk to the professor about when is it necessary to read from the newer edition. Older editions may have different questions at the end of the chapter.
- See if the professor put the print textbook on reserves in the library.
- See if the library has the textbook, which will be highly unlikely because most academic libraries don’t buy textbooks, but they might have gotten an older copy as a gift.
- Buy the book from the bookstore and if it’s not kept for reference in the future, sell it back at the reduced price after the semester.
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