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Opportunity for All

Laurie Phillips works with professors as they build out their courses to provide students with free, unlimited user access to e-textbooks.

6 out of 10 students have indicated they can't afford textbooks

According to Loyola's recent Campus Climate Assessment, almost 58% of Loyola students have indicated that they cannot afford their textbooks they need for their classes. Without textbooks, student success, the thing that is the driving force of higher education, is compromised on an individual and collective level. Students cannot succeed without access to their course materials from day one of a course.

Laurie Phillips
Laurie Phillips

We know that student success is tied to having the materials that the students need. And if they don’t have the learning materials, especially because they can’t afford them, it’s an unfair disadvantage to the students who can’t afford them.

Laurie Phillips, Associate Dean of Monroe Library, saw this need and has worked since Fall 2016 to provide students with the resources they need to succeed in their classes. The Monroe Library, through Phillips’ work, is an active participant in “Affordable Learning LOUISiana,” a project developed by the LOUIS consortium/Louisiana Board of Regents under the direction of Deputy Commissioner, Teri Gallaway, to demonstrate how LOUIS could partner with libraries and faculty to use eTextbooks and open access materials to make course materials (i.e. textbooks) affordable for students in Louisiana’s colleges and universities.

With LOUIS funding alone, a little over $5,000 was spent to save $108,000 for 1,870 students. Additionally, the Monroe Library has purchased e-textbooks for many courses that continue to be used in classes semester after semester. More recently, the LOUIS consortium has used end of year funds to negotiate access to thousands of ebooks each year, many of which match with textbook adoptions.

There are many parts and pieces to making affordable learning possible for Loyola students. At the core, it begins with the faculty and how they determine the textbooks they’ll be using each semester. Initially, the project only involved matching the ISBNs of adopted textbooks with available library-licensed ebooks, then purchasing those ebooks for use by courses.

For Phillips, the process over the years has gotten better and more widely recognized as faculty approach her now as they are developing new courses and choosing course materials. There is a tremendous amount of work involved with coordinating the various parts, keeping it all running smoothly, and working with LOUIS, but in the end, it is far worth it for the continued success of Loyola’s students.

$5000 spent saved $108000 for 1870 students
Small Investment, Big Outcome

With LOUIS funding alone, a little over $5,000 was spent to save $108,000 for 1,870 students. Additionally, the Monroe Library has purchased e-textbooks for many courses that continue to be used in classes semester after semester. More recently, the LOUIS consortium has used end of year funds to negotiate access to thousands of ebooks each year, many of which match with textbook adoptions.

Students studying in the library
Affordable Learning

There are many parts and pieces to making affordable learning possible for Loyola students. At the core, it begins with the faculty and how they determine the textbooks they’ll be using each semester. Initially, the project only involved matching the ISBNs of adopted textbooks with available library-licensed ebooks, then purchasing those ebooks for use by courses.

Student at a computer in the library
Optimizing Options

For Phillips, the process over the years has gotten better and more widely recognized as faculty approach her now as they are developing new courses and choosing course materials. There is a tremendous amount of work involved with coordinating the various parts, keeping it all running smoothly, and working with LOUIS, but in the end, it is far worth it for the continued success of Loyola’s students.

Through end of year opportunities in 2017-18, LOUIS was able to support the addition of three new e-textbook programs with Racing Commission funds. With this program, faculty and students have access to nearly 50,000 e-books from university presses, a value of approximately $5 million.

– Teri Oaks Gallaway, Associate Commissioner of LOUIS

Take a look

Animated person pointing to a computer screen with Louisiana colleges

Video Credits: What LOUIS Means to Louisiana's Academic Libraries by Credo Reference, 2015 and LOUIS Louisana Library Network

I tell them ‘you don’t have to buy this textbook’. And they’re so excited. We’re saving students hundreds of thousands of dollars.

– Laurie Phillips

Did you know?

The Monroe Library has a robust digital archive of all things Loyola right on the website? You can find Wolf Pack basketball games, vintage copies of The Maroon newspaper, and photos dating back to 1912!

Learn more

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