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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)

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Meeting the Textbook Needs of Engineering Students

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  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?

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