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Category: Textbook Affordability

Diamond's Hidden Gems

Diamond’s Hidden Gems – Textbook Affordability

Welcome to the second installment of Diamond’s Hidden Gems, a blog series in which I introduce you to the University of Central Florida’s library services that you may not have known about!

The cost of textbooks and course materials is a significant but often overlooked barrier to affording a degree. Being able to afford your textbook could be the difference between dropping a course and taking as many as possible. UCF’s Textbook Affordability Initiative is designed to minimize the cost of course materials for students while maintaining quality and respecting academic freedom.

There’s just one problem: few of us even know this program exists. Below, I give you everything you need to know to find out what free textbooks are available to you!

Continuing on our streak of making college materials cheaper and easier to access, the textbook affordability initiative helps students gain access to both hard-copy materials and eTextbooks. Using this program, you can often save yourself the effort of hunting down high-priced materials.

Simply fill out known information in the eTextbook portal or a one-page request, and you’ve increased your chances of gaining free and legal access to your course’s required material.

I had the opportunity to speak to Lily Dubach, UCF’s Textbook Affordability Librarian, and she shared with me a few pointers that make selecting classes to enroll in much easier. You can use this method to identify whether your course has a costly required material before you’ve even enrolled!

If you’d like to know how to do this, and check out my step-by-step guide that shows you exactly how to locate or request the materials you need!

Textbook Affordability

How Academic Librarians Are Working with Faculty to Source Affordable Textbooks for Students

Did you know that the library and instructional designers work with faculty to find free course materials? Choice invited the Textbook Affordability Librarian, Lily Dubach, and Sr. Instructional Designer, Dr. John Raible, to speak about a couple examples at UCF. They highlighted an open educational resource (OER) project and library-sourced eBooks, two options that faculty can choose instead of traditional textbooks. Both OER and library-sourced eBooks are free to students. Faculty interested in these options should contact their subject librarian or the Textbook Affordability Librarian to discuss possibilities.

The webinar was held on July 20, 2022. Watch it below or read the accompanying case study.

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