Last month, the Louisiana Online University Information System gave an award to a little-known, money-saving service provided by the University’s libraries to students.
At a conference in early October, LOUIS honored Web Development Librarian David Comeaux and the University’s Libraries Technology Initiatives Department with the Best Customized System Award. The focus of the award was for the e-textbook platform that allows faculty members to choose from titles that the University’s Libraries have then purchase course materials, said Sigrid Kelsey, Director of Library Communications and Publications.
“[The platform] allows faculty to be able to go in and search for books that they might be able to assign for their class,” said Kelsey. “They can search for the titles even if [the University doesn’t] own them, and then if [the University doesn’t] own them, we will get them.”
For students, the e-textbook web pages provided by the University offer digital textbooks for use in their assigned course work.
LOUIS was created by the Louisiana Library Network and is made up of more than 45 libraries from public and private colleges and universities across the state. According to its website, LOUIS “combines the collective resources of all members to produce a dynamic library consortium.”
LOUIS’s network of libraries uses methods including an integrated library system, an interlibrary loan system, electronic scholarly resources and remote access to resources to connect libraries around the state.
The University’s e-textbook platform was derived from a project created at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Current Dean of the University’s Libraries Stanley Wilder was university librarian at UNC Charlotte and decided to implement the idea at the University upon his arrival. Dean Wilder began at the University in the summer of 2014, and the first version of the e-textbook platform launched that fall.
According to NPR, students spend, on average, $600 per year on textbooks for college. For University students, the platform is a money-saving tool.
According to the University’s Libraries, 45 departments across campus are using the platform, giving students access to more than 150 free textbooks this semester.
Since its inception, the platform has developed to the point at which some professors are running cost-free classes.
Math instructor Richard Moscatello uses “Ordinary Differential Equations” for the two sections of MATH 2065 he teaches. Because the textbooks are available on the University’s e-textbook platform, the more than 200 students enrolled in his course pay nothing for the textbooks in his class.
“As more professors adopt these, then I’m sure more students use them … since it’s free, they don’t have any textbook cost,” said Kelsey. “We would love to work with more professors to get more of those courses that way.”