Purpose & Goals

For the last five years, the UW Tacoma Library reserves staff have proactively purchased all campus course textbooks that cost $75 or more, as posted on our bookstore’s website each quarter. We conducted this study in order to assess our textbook acquisition activity over this time period in relation to usage data. Due to collections budget constraints, questions around circulation of materials, and the national concerns around textbook affordability, we wanted to find out how to best negotiate our decreased funds to support the needs of our unique student population and discover their use patterns, while balancing prospective budget considerations, developing sustainable collections policies, and aligning our program with our library mission around student success.

Design & Methodology

Using Alma Analytics, we created a report that included print and ebook monograph purchases on UW Tacoma Library’s course reserves fund code between 2018 to 2023. Data was downloaded as a .csv file and imported into Google Sheets for cleaning, analysis, and visualization, with particular attention to trends related to purchases by program, quarter, and year, as well as format. In addition, we examined quantitative and qualitative data from a Spring 2023 student survey which included several questions about textbook and course reserve use, and we reviewed recent literature relevant to this topic. These materials formed the basis for conversations that included stakeholders from collections, access services, OER, and leadership in order to determine how this work might inform our textbook program moving into the 2024-2025 academic year.

Findings

Our preliminary results indicate that library textbook use declined significantly in the time during and following the pandemic, with spending fluctuating over the five years studied. While certain programs, particularly Psychology, saw high spending and high use, total expenditures did not necessarily correlate to use across all disciplines. Print books were purchased in greater numbers for all programs with the exception of Literature, and ebooks were found to be significantly more expensive on an individual title basis. Students indicated that they valued access to freely available textbooks; however, relatively few reported using course reserves. It is unclear which student communities are best served by this program and whether increasingly popular inclusive access models, alternative means of access such as rental programs or online pirating, or reduced awareness following the return of on-campus services were responsible for the reduced usage of textbooks on course reserve.

Action & Impact

In our current context, we are seeking to balance our student-centered mission and values with the reality of continued budget and space reductions. Our textbook purchasing program was established to mitigate the economic burden of expensive course materials and improve student retention. With those goals in mind, however, we find ourselves at a crossroads: do we continue to purchase higher priced textbooks despite lower use and the greater staff workload demands? Do we pivot to prioritizing highly circulating materials in order to potentially serve the greatest number of students? Is our current program merely a band-aid for a larger, systemic issue, and what is our library’s role in contributing to improved student outcomes in the long term? How can the evidence we’ve gathered be utilized, now and in the future, to advocate for increased textbook affordability? These are the questions we are wrestling with as we continue to consider our findings in determining the future of the program moving forward into the 2023–2024 academic year.

Practical Implications & Value

Our project is a case study examining how one small, urban serving campus library is approaching the evolving needs of our students in relation to the changing textbook affordability landscape. Acquiring textbooks for course reserves to provide students a low-cost alternative to buying individual copies is a well-established practice across college and university libraries, but the pandemic, the rise of inclusive access and similar auto-purchasing and LMS-integration models, and continued lack of funding requires a rethinking of such programs. We present our library’s approach as one model, particularly applicable to similar institutions, that intentionally puts data into conversation with our strategic priorities around student retention and our shared values of equity and inclusion.

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