Survey of the Academic Library Role in the Use of Open Access Textbooks and Other Open Access Educational Materials

This seminal study presents data from 50 colleges and universities about their academic library policies in providing open access textbooks and other open access educational materials and in cultivating their use. The study gives detailed data and commentary on current and planned efforts in areas such as textbooks, journals, periodicals other than journals, MOOCs, course packs, interactive tutorials and other areas of intellectual property. The study also gives highly precise information on the compilation and presentation of links to educational resources on YouTube and Google Scholar, among other sources, and overall college and university and specific academic library efforts to develop open access educational materials. It looks at efforts to provide support services and stipends to faculty, and to publicize the availability of open access educational materials to faculty. The survey respondents also report on the exact number of courses currently using open access textbooks and their plans and expectations for the future. In addition, the participants name colleges and universities that they view as open access role models, and give advice to their peers on how to approach the provision of open access educational materials, from textbooks to journals and other forms of intellectual property. In addition, the study presents data on the role of academic libraries in providing commercial textbooks and the impact of open access on these efforts. Data in the report is broken out by size, type and tuition level of the college or university and by other useful criteria. Just a few of this 95-page study’s main findings are that: • 32.65% of the universities and colleges sampled produce or contribute to the production of open access textbooks. • Nearly 41% of those sampled compiled links to educational materials available on YouTube, Vimeo or other video sites. 75% of community colleges sampled did so as did 44.44% of librarians from public colleges vs. only 36.36% of those from private ones. • Colleges in the sample with from 2,501 to 6,000 students fte have been able to get a mean of 7.75 open access textbooks adopted for use, or about 1 for every 581 students. • Most growth in use of open access interactive tutorials was among research universities, a quarter of which said that growth in use of open access interactive tutorials had been significant. • Community colleges and research universities were the most enthusiastic adopters of open access educational materials.