UMass students, librarians want more faculty to use open source textbooks to save students money | masslive.com

"About 65 percent of college students don't buy textbooks because of cost, said Matt Magalhaes, the affordable textbook campaign coordinator for MassPirg at the University of Massachusetts. Textbooks can cost students $1,200 a year. He and other students and librarians at the university are hoping that students will pressure their professors to adopt open source textbooks. MassPirg organized a press conference Wednesday to highlight a new report issued Tuesday by student public interest groups urging institutions to use open source textbooks in their classrooms and report that students would save more than $1 billion nationally a year. Marilyn Billings, scholarly communication and special initiatives librarian at UMass, and Jay Schafer, director of libraries, both spoke at the press conference also urging more faculty to adopt the open source texts ..."