The Embedded Textbook: Collaborating with Faculty to Employ Library Subscription E-Books as Core Course Text

Abstract

Student and faculty frustrations with traditional higher education textbook models continue to escalate. These frustrations present an opportunity for academic libraries to forge partnerships with teaching faculty and vendors to repurpose existing library resources. Library and teaching faculty at Southern New Hampshire University collaborated to develop a textbook alternative option from subscription e-book content contained in the Books 24 × 7 database. This alternative consisted of a series of links embedded into the Blackboard learning-management system. This partnership provided students with significant financial relief, allowed students to experiment with using e-book content, and increased library resource awareness and use.

Keywords:

• Electronic books
• textbooks
• faculty partnerships
• collaboration
• vendor relations
• Blackboard