Equitable, Affordable Access to Digital Course Materials for University Students: Issues and Solutio

Equitable, Affordable Access to Digital Course Materials for University Students: Issues and Solutions Libraries and Equitable Access to Course Materials Equitable access to high quality educational resources is essential for student academic success. [...] The cost of textbooks and other course materials can present major financial hurdles for students.1 With textbooks costing students between $800-$1,000 per year, some are forced to make difficult financial choices between life necessities and their education.2 Academic libraries help level the playing field by providing the information resources students need to support academic success and learni. [...] Efforts include working with instructors to identify alternative course materials through the libraries’ existing collections; working with instructors, publishers, and vendors to identify alternative course materials that have better access and pricing models; and, advocating and developing support for the creation, adoption, and use of openly licensed, high-quality educational resources (OER), w. [...] Conclusion The accelerated shift to online learning for hundreds of thousands of post-secondary students necessitated by COVID-19 has added urgency to the need to resolve long-standing student access issues. [...] Libraries want to ensure all students—regardless of where they are located, what they are studying, and their financial means—have access to the educational resources they need to earn their degrees.5 We would welcome the opportunity to work with all other stakeholders involved in academic publishing to develop solutions that will better serve our common community of users.