Title: St Olaf Libraries Policy Regarding Textbooks
Effective Date: January 25, 2023
Issuing Authority: Libraries and IT
Program Coordinator: Mary E. Barbosa-Jerez
Contact: Mary E. Barbosa-Jerez, Head of Strategy for Library Collections & Archives
Last Updated: January 25, 2023
Statement and Purpose: To ensure that STO Libraries abide by contractual and copyright distribution restrictions, and commit to the careful stewardship of financial, staff and facility resources in providing research materials to our community.
Who Is Affected and What is Covered By This Policy
This policy affects St. Olaf College students, faculty and staff, and applies to all items acquired and managed within the St Olaf College Libraries’ collections.
Policy
The St Olaf College Libraries do not purchase textbooks, or add donated textbooks to the collections.
Textbooks present challenges for library collections because:
- They are designed to be distributed on a 1-copy-per-student model. Many textbook publishers now include an online component to physical textbooks, or produce the textbook exclusively as a digital product. None of the publishers offer models that will allow libraries to share either supplemental online material, or digital-publications with multiple patrons.
- They are updated every two to four years, with older editions becoming obsolete. Good stewardship of limited budgets and shelf space precludes purchasing or housing materials that do not have lasting research value. Additionally, books purchased for the library collections are considered an enduring capital asset, and therefore must be held until they have fully depreciated – a period of 15 years. Items that cannot meet that depreciation period may not be charged to our budgets.
The St. Olaf College Libraries work in active partnership with faculty and other campus entities to remove barriers to accessing the materials students need for their classes as often as possible.
- We work with faculty as they design their courses, offering advice on material access, and recommending research materials from the library collections for which we can provide campus-wide access.
- We partner with the STO Student Government Association (SGA) , which provides funding and title recommendations for particularly costly textbooks. SGA purchases textbooks which the library places on course reserve. Textbooks are returned to SGA once they become obsolete, to be donated or distributed elsewhere. The library will not accept outdated textbooks for addition to the collections.
- We make students seeking textbooks in the library aware of funds available from the Dean’s Office for the purchase of textbooks, and other required course materials that the libraries are unable to provide.