University of South Florida Library promotes program created to lower textbook costs | The Oracle

"With a plan to inform professors about the less costly textbook options they could assign to students, the USF library is aiming their Textbook Affordability Project (TAP) toward faculty members. Launched in 2010, TAP is designed with the purpose of providing affordable textbook options and solutions for students who are often burdened with course material expenses. According to Collegeboard.org, students in four-year public universities spent about $1,250 on books and supplies in 2017-18. Under the TAP initiative, the library offers solutions such as open-access textbooks, textbooks on reserve and e-books for the classroom, which generally include no cost at all. Todd Chavez, the dean of USF libraries, said the project has been increasingly effective, but there is still progress to be made. According to Chavez, reaching professors who don’t know about TAP will continue the progress the initiative has made. Chavez said there are many options professors could take to help their students.   “They can work with TAP to explore the possibility of using free OER (open educational resources) textbooks,” Chavez said. “They are increasingly being made available at no cost to students. The library also buys electronic books all the time for the collections. Faculty can adopt those e-books and use them instead of a traditional textbook.”..."