1 / 15

Meeting the Textbook Needs of Engineering Students

Meeting the Textbook Needs of Engineering Students. Theresa Calcagno, IT/Engineering Liaison Librarian Jessica Bowdoin, Head Interlibrary Loan 11 June 2012 119 th ASEE Annual Conference (San Antonio, TX). The Current Textbook Situation. Rising costs to buy (or rent)

silas
Download Presentation

Meeting the Textbook Needs of Engineering Students

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Meeting the Textbook Needs of Engineering Students Theresa Calcagno, IT/Engineering Liaison Librarian Jessica Bowdoin, Head Interlibrary Loan 11 June 2012 119th ASEE Annual Conference (San Antonio, TX)

  2. The Current Textbook Situation • Rising costs to buy (or rent) • Increased student expectations for library copies of required textbooks • To buy or not buy: that is the question • Format preferences

  3. Volgenau School of Engineering • 7 departments • 4,287 students (headcount, Fall 2010) • 42% students enrolled at graduate level • Ranked 21st in number of graduate degrees awarded.* • Ranked 23rd in graduate enrollment. * * 2009 ASEE Profiles of Engineering and Engineering Technology Colleges. Washington DC: American Association for Engineering Education.

  4. Initial Issues Identified • ILL Borrowing staff frustrated by textbook requests each semester • Students often kept textbooks for an entire semester, well past their due dates (usual loan period is 4-8 weeks, not the semester) • Inequitable access to books

  5. Analyzed ILL Data • 90% of 50 most borrowed titles were requested by IT/Engineering (IT/E) students • 100% of these titles were IT/E textbooks according to the campus bookstore • Our library owned 76% of these titles • 83% of these titles were used by Computer Science (CS) or Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) courses

  6. Top 20 Textbooks Borrowed through ILL, 1/1/2008 – 6/30/2009

  7. Possible Solutions • Soliciting reserve requests from faculty • Creating an open reserves area in the library for these textbooks • Placing the books on Permanent Reserve • Having the IT/E Librarian place the textbooks on reserve as needed

  8. Decision: Option #4 • Provides an opportunity for library outreach to the engineering faculty and students • Allows for better oversight of reserve titles • Ensures that texts are added to or removed from the Reserves area in a timely fashion • Gives greater flexibility in identifying and purchasing new high-demand titles

  9. Initial Pilot: Fall 2009 • Space determined number of titles • ILL staff identified 50 most requested IT/E textbooks using ILLiad ILL software • Textbook titles were matched to courses using University bookstore textbook lists • IT/E librarian placed owned titles on reserve, ordered books that were not owned, and notified instructors of impacted courses about reserves program • ILL requests for these titles were canceled

  10. Spring 2010 Pilot continued due to these factors: • More than 50% of the Reserve items circulated ≥5 times during the 1st semester • Number of ILL borrowing requests for textbooks decreased • Positive feedback from Reserves staff and IT/E faculty involved with this program

  11. Textbook Reserves Statistics,Fall 2009 through Spring 2011

  12. Average Charges per IT/E Title BorrowedFall 2009 -Spring 2011

  13. Estimated costs and cost savings for Engineering Reserves Program,Fall 2009-Spring 2011

  14. Conclusion • Met goals of project to reduce ILL demand for engineering textbooks and increase student access to these titles • Saved money • Received positive feedback from IT/E faculty, who now see the library as being a proactive partner in addressing a problem they care about

  15. Questions?

More Related