This is a curious piece for me to write. Consider, I began my academic library career while in graduate school at Drexel University as the course book room clerk at the Hagerty Library. There I cataloged course notes, textbooks, and lecture materials. Then, I moved to be the head of reference and interlibrary loan at Philadelphia University. As the architecture and design liaison, I made good use of reserves for ensuring students had access to the architectural drawings they needed for the buildings in their architectural history classes. Then, as the head of access services at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, I oversaw the reserve collection which houses the key works in pharmacy, pharmacology, biology, and chemistry. These books, tomes really, were necessary for any professional in these fields, and these were kept on hand for reference purposes so students would not have to lug them around campus. During this 15-year period, it did not occur to me that, perhaps, course reserves could be a problem. How could it? These materials were often times the most used items in the entire collection. Reserve activities were a significant component of annual circulation/access services activities.
My thinking on course reserves began to shift after I came to Community College of Philadelphia and especially after I became the head of access services in 2017. In the City and County of Philadelphia, about 26% of the population lives below the poverty line. This percentage is among the highest of any American city, and particularly among the largest cities in the nation. At the Community College of Philadelphia, 53.9% of the incoming freshman class in fall 2018 were considered low income. In addition, in 2018, nearly 20% of the student body was experiencing homelessness and about half of the student body was experiencing some form of housing insecurity. Every corner of the college community is aware of these sobering statistics and the library is no exception. Each unit has its own role to play in helping our students succeed, the library, among many activities, has eliminated overdue fines and, of course, offers course reserves services.
For many students at the Community College of Philadelphia, course reserves is a lifeline, the only means of having access to a textbook. Every morning during the academic year before 8 am students are queuing at the Circulation Desk for textbooks. By 10 am our two book scanners are in use and there is often a wait. Tensions can run high as there are assignments to be done, chapters to read, and classes to attend. Our students are not looking to review a textbook they have over in their dorm rooms but do not want to cart it to class; rather without access to these materials, success in college may not even be a possibility.
Community College of Philadelphia faculty, too, are well aware of the problem. Teaching faculty dutifully provide the library the latest editions of their course materials each semester. Students advocate for themselves in classes where the instructor did not place a textbook on reserve. Their efforts usually pay off, the course materials are added, and the reserve collection grows larger. Reserve transactions account for 70.9%, on average, of our annual circulation. One staff position is dedicated to reserves work, and spends about 14 hours a week, on average, on the reserve processing alone. And other 10 hours a week, on average, answering inquiries from students and faculty about various reserves issues. During peak items of the semester, I too process reserve materials. At the circulation desk, we have a small brigade of work-study students staffing the circulation desk where the majority of transactions revolve around course reserves.
Providing course reserves at our colleges and universities is seen as a win-win for all involved. Everyone benefits. The students like having access to the materials, faculty like ensuring their students have access to course materials, and libraries like having foot traffic and those transaction statistics. However, could it be that academic librarianship and the access services community by extension have course reserves all wrong? Could it be that the very presence of this service in our college and university libraries enable faculty to select more expensive textbooks, textbooks they might not have selected otherwise? Could the availability of course reserves be holding back the faculty at our college and universities from participating in open educational resources (OER) initiatives? What about if academic libraries invested in OER activities at the same level as course reserves services? Would our college and university faculty participate in library-led OER activities or use OER content created by their colleagues? I wish I had the answers to these questions. I know, however, there would be a lot of unhappy students if our libraries stopped providing course reserves.
It is always a danger to make predictions, but the point of this editorial is to go out on a limb. The rise of textbook costs is unsustainable. We are already seeing a movement towards the use of OER and a shift away from expensive textbooks. I do not see access services departments or units taking the lead in library OER initiatives, the OER library leaders will be those who have an instructional connection to the discipline/teaching faculty. At the Community College of Philadelphia, for example, our electronic resources librarian is the campus’s OER evangelist – spreading the good news of another way forward. I do see access services departments or units, however, taking on a more supportive role. Access services staff, and those who process course reserves, in particular, are well placed to assist managing access to OER content through the campus’ course management system and print OER content in the traditional course reserves model.