Cleveland State University
IN-41: Textbook Affordability

THE TEXTBOOK CENTER, located on the first floor of the Library at the User Services desk, offers a limited selection of print textbooks required for some of the larger general education classes for the semester. Any CSU student with a valid VikingCard may borrow these textbooks to use for a 2-hour loan.
https://library.csuohio.edu/services/textbooks.html

PRINT & ELECTRONIC COURSE RESERVES, at the Textbook Center or Online
Your professor may be using the Library's print or e-books and articles as required materials. Your prof may even have loaned us his or her own copy of your required texts! Check your syllabus or stop at the user services desk to find out.
https://researchguides.csuohio.edu/er.php?b=c

Textbook Rental
You can rent many of the textbooks you need for the semester, then return them (free return shipping) at the end of the term.
https://www.bkstr.com/csuohiostore/help-faq/textbook-rental

Open Educational Resources (OER) are high-quality, openly licensed, online educational materials that offer an extraordinary opportunity for people everywhere to share, use, and reuse knowledge (Hewlett Foundation). Open Educational Resources created by Cleveland State University faculty are posted in EngagedScholarship@CSU. You can find more OERs by visiting the sites below or perusing the catalog of freely accessible textbooks in Pressbooks@MSL.
Open Educational Resources (Books)
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/oer_books/

OpenStax College
OpenStax College is an initiative of Rice University and hosts a collection high-quality, peer-reviewed textbooks.
https://openstaxcollege.org/books

Open Textbook Library
Cleveland State University is a member of the Open Textbook Network which sponsors the Open Textbook Library. These books have been reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess their quality. They can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost.
https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/

Teaching Commons
The Teaching Commons brings together high-quality OER from leading colleges and universities. Curated by librarians and their institutions, the Teaching Commons includes open access textbooks, course materials, lesson plans, multimedia, and more.
https://teachingcommons.us/

Additional textbook offerings are outlined at the Virtual Reference Desk
https://library.csuohio.edu/research/vrd/textbooks.html

The CSU Michael Schwartz Library has offered Textbook Affordability Grants every semester to faculty since 2015. Faculty who adopt an open textbook or other free textbook alternative can receive $500. Faculty who adapt or create an openly-licensed alternative to their commercial textbook can receive $1000. To date, the library has given out 28 grants for a total of approximately $438,000 in savings for students.
https://library.csuohio.edu/affordable-learning/grant.html

The library also works with the CSU Student Government Association to offer an annual Textbook Hero Award. This teaching award honors a faculty member whose decision to use a free and/or open textbook has a high impact on student achievement.
https://library.csuohio.edu/affordable-learning/heroes.html

Librarians provide support and information to faculty about the use of open access textbooks. An example of one such session is outlined below.

OPEN ACCESS TEXTBOOKS
Presenters:
Mandi Goodsett, Performing Arts & Humanities Librarian
Dr. Glenda Thornton, Director of the University Library
Description:
Open textbooks are full, real textbooks licensed to be freely used, edited, and distributed. Increasingly, faculty members all across the country are adopting open textbooks as one way to address affordability. In this workshop you can learn about open access textbooks and discover what is available in your field.