Open Education and Academic Libraries: Can Libraries Make Higher Educa

Description

This book considers the issues of affordability and open education and their potential to challenge the economic constraints embedded in higher education, as well as contribute to a transformation in how higher education serves its communities. In recent decades, the costs of higher education have become increasingly unaffordable. Globally, access to high-quality education and information has... Read more

This book considers the issues of affordability and open education and their potential to challenge the economic constraints embedded in higher education, as well as contribute to a transformation in how higher education serves its communities.

In recent decades, the costs of higher education have become increasingly unaffordable. Globally, access to high-quality education and information has been marked by inequity, especially highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Academic libraries have long led efforts to provide access to materials, databases, technology lending, study spaces, and textbook reserve services. They also promote awareness around open educational resources (OER) and practices, which can help higher education meet its evolving needs in a complex international context. However, these OER programs often face challenges related to sustainability, diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEIA), and assessment. This book interrogates whether libraries' ethos of access and inclusivity has been realized through these programs and identifies remaining issues. With contributions from LIS scholars worldwide, it suggests improvements in how libraries approach OER creation, decolonization of libraries and academia, and sustainable OER labour practices. Chapters include case studies, discussions on library eBook models and textbook affordability, and the intersection of OER with diversity, equity, and inclusion. It also explores the dual nature of open education as a catalyst for decolonial change or colonial continuity, and the implications for labour, research, and pedagogy in OER work. It shows that while these programs can challenge economic structures, internal contradictions and biases remain, and libraries must embrace a more radical stance towards global affordability and access.

This book will be of interest to librarians and university administrators as well as academics and students with interests in access, affordability, OER issues, collection development and management, and critical studies..

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List of contributors; Chapter 1. Introduction; Chapter 2. Harnessing Librarians’ Power to Advance Textbook Affordability through OER and Library Ebooks; Chapter 3. OER and Social Justice in a Polarized Era: A Conversation with the Creators of the SCOPE Framework; Chapter 4. Open Education in Greece: Libraries, Policy, and Equity Implications; Chapter 5. Building OER programs on student agency, not need: Thinking beyond current practice; Chapter 6. “It Is a Thousand Times Harder to Find Textbooks in French”: Encouraging the Creation of Open Educational Resources in French at a Bilingual Canadian University; Chapter 7. Student-Generated OER: The Library’s Role; Chapter 8. The Dual Nature of Open Education: Catalyst for Decolonial Change or Colonial Continuity?; Chapter 9. Resisting Enclosure and Extraction: Implications for Labor, Research, and Pedagogy in OER Work; Chapter 10. Help Me Help You: Invisible and Unbalanced Library Labor in Support of Open Educational Practices; Chapter 11. The Value of Open Education Librarian Labor; Index.

Editor(s)

Biography

Lily Todorinova is Undergraduate Experience Librarian/Open Educational Research at Rutgers University Libraries and a doctoral student at Rutgers’ Graduate School of Education. Her research and practice focus on open educational resources, textbook affordability, undergraduate learning, and the role of academic libraries in supporting equitable student success.

Julia Anne Maxwell is a doctoral student in Library and Information Science at Rutgers University’s School of Communication and Information. Her work examines information access, open education, creativity, and creative and library-related labor, drawing on her experience as a librarian, teacher, and performing artist.

Open Education and Academic Libraries Can Libraries Make Higher Education More Equitable?

Description

Table of Contents

Editor(s)

Biography

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