Friends of the UNCG Libraries

A grant from the State Library of North Carolina will aid students at East Carolina University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro by reducing their costs for required textbooks. The grant is part of the Library Services and Technology Act and is made possible by LSTA grant funding from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal grant-making agency. The State Library of North Carolina, a Division of the Department of Cultural Resources, awarded a grant to librarians from J.Y. Joyner Library at ECU and Jackson Library at UNCG to develop a two-pronged approach to Alternative Textbooks. Including matching funds from both universities, the  total cost of the two-year project is $184,332.   Sharing best practices, procedures, and promotional materials, the librarians at both institutions will work with departmental faculty to reduce students' textbook costs and increase their academic engagement through two concurrent strategies. One strategy i...

2014 Faculty Senate Scholarly Communications Forum October 23rd 3:30 – 5:00 EUC Kirkland Introduction by UNCG Provost and Vice Chancellor Dana Dunn Speaker – Nicole Allen - Director of Open Education for the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) Panel discussion to follow Nicole Allen The cost of college textbooks has grown to a point that virtually every campus is now seeking solutions. While many colleges and universities like UNCG have successfully reduced costs through stop-gap measures such as rental programs and textbook reserves, the greatest potential for permanently solving the problem lies in Open Educational Resources (OERs), which are academic materials that are freely available online for everyone to use, adapt, and share.  Institutions across the country have begun to leverage OERs to reduce textbook costs, expand access to information, and enable faculty to better tailor materials to their courses. This talk will provide an overview of...