Textbook Affordability

SGA’s Textbook Affordability Initiative

Student Education & Awareness

  1. Prezi & Infographic
    1. Share digitally on webpages and social media
    2. Host in academic colleges- on monitors
  • Share with parents during SOAR
  1. Encourage faculty to share with their classes- via syllabi or course websites
  • Implementation of a Course Collection in Maag Library
    1. Initially focusing on textbooks from General Education courses
    2. Secured game ticket vouchers from Athletics to incentivize students to donate
    3. See policy statement below
  • Longer term goals:
    1. Lobby Columbus to eliminate/ exempt sales taxes on textbooks
      1. HB308- petitions out with representatives on campus now
    2. Work with publishers to secure discounts on access codes by purchasing in bulk

Library Course Collection Policy:

  1. The course collection will initially focus on the textbooks used in General Education courses at YSU, although other textbooks may be housed there for other courses
    1. A list of the 152 unique general education courses that will be taught in Fall of 2016 was provided by General Education committee chair
    2. One to two textbooks from each course will be housed in the course collection
  2. Library staff will assist in check out of the textbooks to students, faculty, or staff for use within the library. They reserve the right to assure return and adherence to library policy by the students.
  3. Students do not have to be enrolled in the course to use any textbook
  4. Maximum check out of 3 hours, unless upon return there is no wait, to where students may check-in and then check-out the text for another period of 3 hours
  5. Textbooks for courses not being taught will be discarded after two years of nonuse. The library is responsible for curating the collection, and reserves the right to dispose of gift materials that are found to be inappropriate for the collection. This disposal can result in donation to charities, local or national.
  1. The library will also curate the collection when courses abandon the use of a text in the course collection and update the text they use for that class

Logistics for the Collection of the texts and following the textbook collection:

  1. Faculty who teach general education courses will be reached out to during the month of April to secure their support of the initiative and their assistance in the collection of the texts
    1. An open Google document will be used to record supporting faculty’s name and email, the class they teach, and the textbook they are collecting
  2. Advertisement of donation opportunities will occur one week prior to finals week and continue during extended library hours during finals week- this will be sent via YSU’s mass email system. SGA will craft/ write this email and the faculty will forward it to their students- each email will include a survey, where students can indicate they would like to donate their texts- the survey will only accept two responses per class- these two first responders will receive the vouchers- this survey will also collect YSU email address and banner ID numbers for record keeping and for the library to use to send out donation letters
  3. SGA will lead the coordination with professors to collect the texts
    1. Collection occurs during finals week
    2. Collecting a maximum of two texts per course
    3. Faculty who agree to assist SGA in this initiative can collect the athletic vouchers at their Dean’s office (4 vouchers per student)
      1. They will give the vouchers to their students and gather the two textbooks
    4. They will also turn in the two textbook donations in to the Deans office until picked up by SGA representatives on the Friday of Finals week
  4. On the Friday of Finals week the textbooks will all be delivered to the library and the library staff will add them to the library’s collection
  5. During the summer semester SGA will reach out to the faculty that teach each of the courses for which books were collected for- a statement for inclusion in there syllabus will be provided to help promote the use of the library course collection
  6. This process will be repeated by SGA and the library at the conclusion of every semester