Textbooks and Libraries

Bonnie Imler recently wrote an article in American Libraries about “Troublesome Textbooks” that sounded a familiar strain—how to address textbook requests. She has found that more and more students are visiting the library to inquire about borrowing textbook for classes. At first, she attributed this to students confusing the library with the bookstore, but soon began to realize it was more about expectations—libraries circulate books, textbooks are books, therefore, libraries should have the college textbooks available for loan. Unfortunately, her response to create a handout for students called “Looking for Textbooks?” was less than satisfying and misses the big picture.

Today, there was a response entitled “The Case for Textbooks” from Krista McDonald and John Burke from Miami University (OH). MU has also encountered textbook enquires, but after applying S. R. Ranganathan’s “Five Laws of Library Science,” they have “decided to work with our students, faculty, other academic support departments on campus, and the campus bookstores to create in both of our libraries ‘Textbooks on Reserve’ collections, which are updated through a combination of faculty and student donations and library purchases.”

Fortunately, some of the comments focused on what I think is the elephant in the room—the cost of textbooks and innovative ways to address textbook issues such as web 2.0 technologies and open sources. I would like to see more librarians exploring resources that provide open source textbooks and more discussion the role of libraries in the use and development of open source textbooks at academic institutions.