College is not cheap. In addition to tuition, housing and the cost of everyday living, students face the additional charge of purchasing textbooks and school supplies each semester. However, the J.D. Williams Library is working toward offering free e-book copies of required textbooks, a move they hope will help ease students’ frustration and pocketbooks.
According to the University of Mississippi’s Office of Financial Aid, textbooks and supplies are estimated to cost undergraduate students approximately $1,200 per year. Many students have expressed frustration about not only high textbook prices, but how often they end up using their required texts.
“Sometimes when teachers ask for textbooks and they don’t use (them), it’s frustrating,” Reece Nighswander, a sophomore mathematics major, said. “My calculus class last year asked us to get the textbook, and then we also had to get the online version. So, it was almost $300 for the class. But there are certain classes like Spanish where you have to use it. Sometimes it just has more value than others.”
Attempting to raise awareness about the issue of textbook affordability, the library held an event on Tuesday, Feb. 6, with faculty from across campus to discuss ways of finding alternative textbooks that would cost less for students.
“Our target audience was faculty,” Elizabeth Batte, organizer of the event and outreach and strategic initiatives librarian, said. “We wanted to see which faculty are interested in affordability, because at the end of the day they are the ones making the decisions on the textbooks required for their courses.”
Although there are some exceptions, many professors are able to follow departmental guidelines and still choose required reading at their own discretion.
“How textbooks are chosen varies depending upon who is teaching the course, the subject of the course, what accreditation requirements there may be and other factors,” Batte said. “In most cases, faculty are choosing the required textbooks, but these same factors can still impact their choices.”
Batte explained that many professors from departments like engineering, Southern studies and writing and rhetoric expressed interest in finding new textbooks for their courses.
“There were a lot of faculty members who came to that conversation who were like, ‘I am just using this book because it is the only one I have,’” Batte said. “We were able to have good conversations on Tuesday with faculty who were looking for alternatives because they care about affordability for students.”
While finding cost-efficient textbook alternatives was a priority at the event, Batte also explained an innovative way the library is aiming to purchase e-book copies of required textbooks and to make them available to students for free.
“If the required textbooks were available through our e-book provider, we would purchase them,” Batte said. “What we are looking for is an e-book copy that would have unlimited usages so that we make one purchase and every student needing the book in the future will have access to the e-book through the library catalog for free.”
Batte clarified that this effort would be collaborative between the library, professors and students.
“We will work with professors to share the link so they can send it to their students,” Batte said. “We want to make it as easy online as possible.”
Batte’s co-organizer for the event was Brian Young, collection strategist and scholarly communication librarian. He introduced professors to another avenue for cost-efficient textbooks. Open education resources, as he explained, are already in use in some universities as they are a free source for all students to use.
“In the realm of getting students free access, there’s usually two avenues,” Young said. “There’s (what) we’re calling curriculum-driven acquisitions, where we’ll work with faculty to buy a book. There’s also what’s called open education resources. These are textbooks or course materials that have been kind of cobbled together to be a textbook that is free to access.”
Dylan Troutman, a junior biology major, has long sought the best deals on textbooks. He expressed interest in the library’s mission to have more affordable options for textbooks.
“Usually, I try to find textbooks wherever they are cheapest, like off Amazon or on third-party websites,” Troutman said. “I would definitely use the library if they had an e-book that saved me a considerable amount of money. If I have to pay for a book, I’d rather have a physical copy, but if the library was providing free copies, I’d save my money and use those.”
Despite the promise shown in the UM library’s efforts, Batte clarified that some textbooks may not be eligible for purchase by the library.
“Sometimes it is courseware or accreditation,” Batte said. “There are certain boundaries that we have to work within to say, ‘This is what we can do even though there is not a perfect solution.’ There’s not a perfect solution to every textbook situation, but if the campus can work together to try to find the solutions for the ones we can, then that’s taking prices off of the students.”
In these instances where the university would not be able to purchase a textbook, Young had other suggestions for students looking to not break the bank on required texts.
“I would usually recommend that (students) build connections amongst the student population,” Young said. “Just selling books among yourselves can save money. That said, the used markets are always a good place.”Batte encouraged students to voice their opinions on textbook affordability while acknowledging the role faculty and administrators play in reducing overall costs of education.
“I want (students) to know they also have a role in this conversation because they have the power to advocate for textbook affordability as well,” Batte said. “It’s important so we can have more faculty and even administrators at the table to talk about ways that we can approach textbook affordability in an even bigger, broader view.”
