Reserve Textbooks: An Old Idea Whose Time Has Come

Reserve Textbooks: An Old Idea Whose Time Has Come

Why Physical Copies: Library Benefits

• Recent physical renovations meant to increase student traffic: making textbooks available as physical copies increases student traffic.
• May lead to increased comfort with library, inclination to see it as a resources early in career (since high enrollment classes are mainly gen ed)
• Library's Mission:
• "An article in American Libraries, in the "On My Mind" section, called "The Case for Textbooks," caused us to take a first look at re-considering our policy. In this short article, McDonald and Burke (2010) cited Ranganathan's "Five Laws of Library Science," and convinced our librarians that textbooks should be considered for purchase. They very successfully related buying textbooks to four of the five laws. Here's a summary of the three that impressed us:
• * Books are for use.
• * They make the case that many texts are available anyway - through interlibrary loan or on their regular shelves. So why stand in the way of potential users by making textbooks harder to obtain?
• * Every book its reader.
• * These quickly "obsolete" materials probably see more check-outs than most books on regular shelves.
• * Save the time of the reader.
• * Students sometimes need a temporary text until they can get theirs. If we can get them texts until then, it will surely save time!"

Why Physical Copies: Learning Outcomes

Precedents

"we librarians have allowed an unfortunate limitation of the print world to shape not only our behaviors but also our philosophy, to the point that many of us in academic libraries seem to see excluding textbooks as something like a defining value of librarianship — not a service we regretfully forego because it’s not feasible, but a service we forego because “That’s Not Who We Are As Librarians”. This has produced a curious perversity in our professional posture, a stance that says to our student patrons, “Count on us to give you access to all of the information resources you need in order to do your scholarly work — all, that is, except for those you need most desperately: your classroom texts.” At a time when it is increasingly necessary for libraries to find new ways of being mission-critical to their sponsoring institutions, this aversion to textbook provision seems to me increasingly self-defeating."

Middlemas, J., Morrison, P., & Farina-Hess, N. (2012). Reserve textbooks: To buy, or not to buy? Library Philosophy and Practice, 1-9

Duke University--"The Duke University Top Textbooks Program is designed to reduce the burden of textbook costs for our student population by purchasing textbooks for the 100 largest courses on campus, based on course enrollment each semester, and placing them on reserve. That means that these textbooks are available for you to borrow at the Libraries for up to 3 hours!"

https://library.duke.edu/course-support/course-reserves/textbooks/about

North Carolina State University (NCSU)-”Each fall and spring semester, the Libraries

works with the NC State Bookstores to purchase at least one copy of every required textbook and make them available on Reserve.”

https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/textbookservice/

 The University of Oklahoma-Textbooks on Reserve- “offers selected required

textbooks available free of charge to students…. Our collection of textbooks primarily

cover general education courses that have the highest enrollments as well as courses

that have comparatively high-cost textbooks. While University Libraries is not able to

purchase textbooks for every course, this approach reaches the greatest number

students possible as well as assists those most impacted by textbook costs.”

https://libraries.ou.edu/content/textbooks-reserve-0

 Ohio State University-The OSUL GE Textbook Project- “purchases and provides copies

of required textbooks for select General Education curriculum courses via the Libraries'

Closed Reserve.” https://library.osu.edu/about/departments/collectiondevelopment/ge-textbook-project/

Anderson, Rick. (2016 July 6). Academic libraries and the textbook taboo: Time to get over it? The Scholarly Kitchen. Retrieved from https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2016/07/07/academic-libraries-and-the-textbook-taboo-time-to-get-over-it/

2013 study shows only 16.7% of students using an ebook in text would take another course that required an ebook

(Baek, E., & Monaghan, J. (2013). Journey to textbook affordability: An investigation of students' use of etextbooks at multiple campuses. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 14(3), 1-26.)

Although the literature suggested that learning rates are similar from paper to e-text, some studies have demonstrated that recall and retrieval is poorer when reading from an e-text as compared with a print text (Jeong, 2012; Mayes, Sims, & Koonce, 2001; Noyes & Garland, 2003; Berg et al., 2010).

Amanda J. Rockinson- Szapkiw, Jennifer Courduff, Kimberly Carter, David Bennett (2013). Electronic versus traditional print textbooks: A comparison study on the influence of university students' learning,Computers & Education,Volume 63,

2013, Pages 259-266,

A few libraries purchase at least one copy of some or all required textbooks and make them available through course reserves for brief loan periods. At NCSU, the potential student savings per semester are approximately $424,000. (University Library Advisory Council. (2019). Student concerns about textbooks & library actions. Chapel Hill, NC)

Factors to Consider

Cost of Textbooks (Midlemas and Farina-Hess allocated 10% of print budget)

Short turn around times: spring orders go in in October (faculty outreach: ask to standardize books/sections, from year to year, note if older copy can still be used)

Increased staff duties: checking reserves in/out, keeping eye on usage, preventing theft (tags/security)

The results indicated that students who used e-textbooks for their education courses had significantly higher perceived psychomotor and affective learning than students who choose to use traditional print textbooks. That is, students who used e-textbooks perceived better acquisition of skill (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Also, students using the e-textbook as compared to the traditional textbook had “an increasing internalization of positive attitudes toward the content or subject matter” (Kearney, 1994, p. 81). These findings are consistent with past research that suggested that university students who use electronic books for in class group activities have equivalent or better feelings toward learning than university students who use print books for the same activities (Rockinson-Szapkiw, Holder, & Dunn, 2011). If reading an e-textbook can improve the already negative attitudes higher education students have toward reading textbooks and motivate them to read (Hendel & Harrold, 2004), the adoptions of e-textbooks over traditional textbooks may have implications for improving skills needed for success and persistence in college (Hermida, 2009). For, “[r]eading academic texts published by those disciplinary experts permits students to immerse in the culture of the discipline and facilitates learning its conventions, discourse, skills, and knowledge (Hermida, 2009, p. 21). Reading a text via an e-reader or tablet appears to support cognitive learning in the manner similar to printed text. Grades and cognitive learning did not reach statistical significance in this study, suggesting that the type of text may not impact the cognitive aspect of learning and that the use of electronic textbooks for in and out of class learning is a viable choice for university students

The Need

Amanda J. Rockinson- Szapkiw, Jennifer Courduff, Kimberly Carter, David Bennett (2013). Electronic versus traditional print textbooks: A comparison study on the influence of university students' learning,Computers & Education,Volume 63,

2013, Pages 259-266,

The Proposal

"Textbook costs are a recognized impediment to student success, resulting in students taking fewer courses, choosing courses based on textbook cost, or getting a poor grade due to not having reliable, day one access to the text. Currently, 25 states have legislation or policies addressing course materials affordability, but North Carolina is not among them. " (University Library Advisory Council. (2019). Student concerns about textbooks & library actions. Chapel Hill, NC)

UNC-Pembroke's Mary Livermore Library should create a textbook reserve program

• physical copies of textbooks: 2-3 books/course
• highest enrolled classes
• offer as reserves

2011:

7 in 10 college students said they had not purchased a textbook at least once because they had found the price too high.

Redden, Molly. (2011 August 23). 7 in 10 students have skipped buying a textbook because of its cost, survey finds. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/7-in-10-Students-Have-Skipped/128785

About 73% of UNCP Students receive federal loans

Engl 1050/1060

Hist 1010/1020/1030

AIS 1100/1110

Psyc 1010

Soc 1020/2090

Bio 1000/1030/1060

GLY 1050

MAt 1010/1050

Currently uneven: we have copies of some textbooks, but not others (ie 2 of the English departments 6 commonly used textbooks). No regularly executed policy.