COVID-19 forces college libraries to quarantine textbooks, hitting low-income students
peter.suber's bookmarks 2020-10-14
Summary:
"During the spring, many publishers made access to digital course materials free to ease students’ transition into remote instruction. But that offer was temporary. At Santa Fe Community College, for example, students are still learning remotely and do not have access to print materials in the library.
Valerie Nye, library director at the community college, described her struggle to find a solution in a recent webinar hosted by the Association of College and Research Libraries. She described how her institution is now working with a company called BibliU to provide students with access to digital textbooks. She noted, however, that this is being funded by CARES Act federal stimulus funding and may not be a sustainable option for the library in the long term....
Allen and Gumb, who are proponents of open educational resources -- freely accessible and openly copyrighted course materials -- feel that this VitalSource offer isn't sufficient.
“It’s a Band-Aid on a much bigger problem,” Allen said.
In the future, Gumb said she will be stepping up her advocacy efforts for OER, encouraging faculty members to develop their own course materials or adapt existing materials to their own needs...."