With the fall 2023 semester now upon us, we know that things can get very expensive for students. To help relieve some of the financial stress, Falvey Library cordially invites the Villanova community to attend one of our events focused on cost-saving on course materials. There are two events being offered: a virtual session on Aug. 22 and an in-person session on Aug. 24 where we will share helpful tips and tricks. Both events are ACS-approved. See the event details below.

Please contact Libraryevents@villanova.edu with any questions. Be sure to join us at one of these informative events!

Textbook Tuesday

Tuesday, Aug. 22,

6-7 p.m.

Virtual Event, REGISTER HERE

Have you felt overwhelmed by the cost of course materials and options for getting the books you need? You’re not alone. Join us on Tuesday, Aug. 22 from 6-7 p.m. to share tips with your peers and learn how Falvey Library and CASA can help. Nicole Daly, Social Sciences librarian, is hosting Textbook Tuesday to explore different ways to save money on class materials. Attendees will be able to use their newfound knowledge to check out options for sourcing their course materials with a librarian’s assistance.

Textbooks and Tacos

Thursday, Aug. 24

5-6 p.m.

 Speakers’ Corner (located on the first floor of Falvey Library)

Have you felt overwhelmed by the cost of course materials and options for getting the books you need? You’re not alone. Join us on Thursday, Aug. 24 from 5-6 p.m. in Falvey Library’s Speakers’ Corner on the first floor to share tips with your peers and learn how Falvey Library and CASA can help. Nicole Daly, Social Sciences librarian, and Linda Hauck, Business Librarian, are hosting Tacos and Textbooks to explore different ways to save money on class materials.

Bring your laptop and an appetite so you can use your newfound knowledge to check out options for sourcing your course materials with a librarian’s assistance. Tacos will be served until supplies last!

Regina Duffy is a Communication and Marketing Program Manager at Falvey Library.

Have you felt overwhelmed by the cost of course materials and options for getting the books you need? You’re not alone. Join us virtually on Tuesday, May 30 from 6-7 p.m. to share tips with your peers and learn how Falvey Library can help. Nicole Daly, Social Sciences librarian, is hosting “Textbook Tuesday” to explore different ways to save money on class materials. Attendees will be able to use their newfound knowledge to check out options for sourcing their course materials with a librarian’s assistance.

This event is free and open to Villanova students, parents, faculty, and staff who are interested!

REGISTER HERE

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

The Affordable Materials Project in conjunction with Subject Librarians went on a Listening Tour to learn about faculty course materials practices, challenges, and concerns.  During the fall of 2021 and spring of 2022, AMP members and librarians spoke with faculty teaching high enrollment, introductory courses that typically use commercial textbooks.

We had conversations about how textbooks and homework systems are chosen and used and what services might promote the use of high-quality, low-cost textbooks and open educational resources (OER).   The Listening Tour’s findings and recommendations are now available here.

Villanova faculty, staff, students, and friends are cordially invited to join the Affordable Materials Project (AMP) in celebrating faculty members, Jeanne Liedtka, JD, and Valentina DeNardis, PhD, who were awarded Open Educational Resource (OER) Faculty Adoption Grants for 2021-22 in a virtual forum on Wednesday, March 9, from 3-4 p.m.

At this event, faculty will share their insights into the benefits and challenges posed by redesigning their courses using FREE, OPENLY LICENSED TEXTBOOKS. Students will also share feedback on using OER.

This event is perfect for faculty considering or curious about OER and everyone interested in educational affordability, accessibility, and inclusivity. This ACS-approved event is co-sponsored by the AMP and Falvey Memorial Library.

REGISTER HERE

Please be sure to join us at this event to celebrate faculty who support textbook affordability at Villanova!

Regina Duffy is a Communication and Marketing Program Manager at Falvey Memorial Library.

It’s Open Access Week 2021! According to Peter Suber, Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication, Director of the Harvard Open Access Project, and Senior Researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, “Open Access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder.”

Falvey Memorial Library supports OA as it lowers costs for students among many other benefits. Learn more about this important initiative here.

In honor of Open Access week, you are invited to join Michael Pagano, PhD, The Robert J. and Mary Ellen Darretta Endowed Chair in Finance, Professor, Finance & Real Estate, TODAY, Wednesday, Oct. 27, from 1:30-2:15 p.m. for a virtual talk on authoring the open access textbook Liquidity, Markets & Trading in Action: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. This book will be of interest to finance, economics, and information technology faculty, and includes a TraderEx simulation and ancillary instructor materials. Dr. Pagano will explain the thought process that went into publishing OA, describe the authoring experience, and touch on the OA funding model that made it possible. A description of programs that support OA publishing at Villanova will be included.

Please REGISTER HERE.

This event is open to the Villanova community and faculty everywhere interested in open access publishing.

Other Open Access Initiatives:

Open Educational Resources (OER) Faculty Adoption Grant

Faculty interested in course adoptions should consider applying for the Open Educational Resources (OER) Faculty Adoption Grant. Designed to encourage faculty to select free, openly licensed textbooks as primary course materials, applications for the grant will be accepted until Saturday, Oct. 30. Faculty members will be required to adopt an OER textbook for a new/existing course taught in spring 2022. The 2021 recipients of the OER Faculty Adoption Grant, Valentina DeNardis, PhD, and Jeanne Liedtka, JD, will save students an estimated $10,000 in one semester while they experiment with new ways of teaching.

Open Access Week Interactive Tabling (Oct. 25-Oct. 29)

Villanova students are invited to stop by Falvey Memorial Library’s first floor this week (Monday, Oct. 25- Friday, Oct. 29) to participate in interactive tabling. The Affordable Materials Project Committee (AMP) is hoping to gather helpful feedback on how much students are spending on textbooks, what strategies they use to cope with expensive course materials, and feelings about costs.

Open Access Guide

This guide was initially created by Anne Walkenhorst, under the direction of Sarah Wipperman, as part of her duties as Scholarly Communications & Digital Archiving Intern in Spring 2021.

Please contact Linda Hauck, Business Librarian, for more information on AMP and open access opportunities.

Regina Duffy is a Communication and Marketing Program Manager at Falvey Memorial Library.

The Affordable Materials Project (AMP) and Falvey Memorial Library are set to host a lineup of fall events. AMP is a University-wide collaboration between the Villanova bookstore, Falvey Library, the Center for Access, Success and Achievement (CASA), and the Office of the Provost, all working together to provide faculty with resources and options for selecting high quality, affordable course materials and creating student awareness of affordable options for obtaining course materials. At the conclusion of the spring 2021 semester, AMP celebrated an important milestone—saving Villanova students more than $1 million on course materials!

Join AMP and Falvey Library at one—or both—of these upcoming virtual events:

Best Practices for Course Materials Adoption Workshop (Monday, Oct. 18, at 11:30 a.m.)

Falvey Library staff and Course Materials Manager Bernadette Mania will be holding a workshop for faculty on selecting course materials on Monday, Oct. 18, 11:30 a.m.- 12:30 p.m. via Zoom. Get answers to your questions about course packs, copyright, and e-reserves. Learn about the effort to provide electronic copies of course texts. Hear about resources to help lessen the financial burden of textbooks/course materials on students without sacrificing quality. Please register here.

Authoring an Open Access (OA) Interdisciplinary Textbook: Michael Pagano, PhD, on Liquidity, Markets & Trading in Action (Wednesday, Oct. 27, at 1:30 p.m.)

Join Michael Pagano, PhD, The Robert J. and Mary Ellen Darretta Endowed Chair in Finance, Professor, Finance & Real Estate, on Wednesday, Oct. 27, from 1:30-2:15 p.m. for a virtual talk on authoring the open access textbook Liquidity, Markets & Trading in Action: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. This book will be of interest to finance, economics, and information technology faculty, and includes a TraderEx simulation and ancillary instructor materials. Dr. Pagano will explain the thought process that went into publishing OA, describe the authoring experience, and touch on the OA funding model that made it possible. A description of programs that support OA publishing at Villanova will be included. Please register here.

Both events are open to the Villanova community and faculty everywhere interested in open access publishing. Faculty interested in course adoptions should consider applying for the Open Educational Resources (OER) Faculty Adoption Grant. Designed to encourage faculty to select free, openly licensed textbooks as primary course materials, applications for the grant will be accepted until Saturday, Oct. 30. Faculty members will be required to adopt an OER textbook for a new/existing course taught in spring 2022. The 2021 recipients of the OER Faculty Adoption Grant, Valentina DeNardis, PhD, and Jeanne Liedtka, JD, will save students an estimated $10,000 in one semester while they experiment with new ways of teaching.

Please contact Linda Hauck, Business Librarian, for more information on AMP and open access opportunities.

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library.

Villanova students visit Falvey Memorial Library’s 1842 day table for fun gifts and helpful information. Photo courtesy of Shawn Proctor, Communication and Marketing Program Manager.

Thank you to all of our 1842 Day donors! Falvey Memorial Library raised $13,877.94 from the gifts of 81 generous donors and the Affordable Materials Project (AMP) raised $2,301.84 from 26 supporters.

AMP is a university-wide collaboration between the bookstore, Falvey Library, CASA, and the Office of the Provost, all working together to faculty with resources and options for selecting high quality, affordable course materials and creating student awareness of affordable options for obtaining course materials. 2021 contributions to AMP support library-purchased assigned e-books made available at no cost to students, faculty grants that support the adoption and authoring of free, openly licensed textbooks, known as Open Educational Resources (OER), and purchase of loaner laptops and graphing calculators for students who may not be able to afford to purchase, replace, or repair their devices.

2021 gifts to Falvey Memorial Library support the Library’s collection, benefiting Villanovans for years to come. Past donations were used to purchase new diversity, equity, and inclusion materials, new public health materials, and preservation supplies to preserve rare materials for future scholarship.

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library.

Today is 1842 Day, Villanova’s annual day of giving! This 24-hour event celebrates the people and programs that are making a difference at Villanova and beyond. Support the Affordable Materials Project (AMP) by making a gift to its 1842 Day campaign.

Thank you for supporting AMP and Falvey Memorial Library.

At the conclusion of the Spring 2021 semester, the Affordable Materials Project (AMP) reached an important milestone well worth celebrating: since Spring 2018, AMP e-book matching has potentially saved students more than $1 million on course materials!

If you are a new student at Villanova this year, or if you haven’t heard of the program, AMP is a joint effort between the Provost’s Office, CASA, the University Bookstore, and the Library. As a part of its initiatives to encourage cost savings for course materials, AMP provides for library access to e-books that are assigned as course materials for Villanova students.

The AMP committee continues to work to deliver additional titles for the Fall 2021 semester. If you are enrolled in a course with an assigned text available in the AMP program, you should receive an email with more information about accessing the e-book via the Library. Be sure to check out the AMP resources for students page to see if your text is available and save yourself some money while gaining online access to the materials you need to succeed in your coursework.

We hope as many students as possible are able to benefit from the AMP e-book matching program for their courses, and some of you may receive a survey later this Fall asking about your engagement with the program so that we can better understand AMP’s impact across the University.

Have a productive, healthy, and memorable Fall semester!

John Banionis is the Metrics & Assessment Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.

Join us in celebrating five faculty members awarded OER Faculty Adoption Grants for 2020-21 in a virtual forum. Faculty will share their insights into the benefits and challenges posed by redesigning their courses using free, openly licensed textbooks. Students will share feedback on using OER. This event is perfect for faculty considering or curious about OER and everyone interested in educational affordability, accessibility, and inclusivity.

Existing and emerging financial limitations, COVID-19, and the pivot to online learning has exposed challenges that many students face securing the course materials they need to succeed. This workshop is for faculty and academic support staff to learn about strategies and resources available across the university to reference whenever a student discloses being in need of course materials. The workshop will run for approximately 30 minutes with time for Q&A afterwards.

Please REGISTER at the following link:

https://villanova.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIpceCgrDMsEtKvuA9QzKv4VNbD9YiOODkQ

Questions? Contact Linda Hauck, Business Librarian. For more information about the Affordable Materials Project, please visit: https://library.villanova.edu/amp/index.html