At the 2025 Founding celebration, the Textbook Affordability Committee was awarded the Team Excellence Award. The nomination cited the committee’s Preview programming that supports incoming students and families as they learn about the costs and options surrounding textbooks. Sally Nadeau, Lisa Lawless, Joe Hendrix, Julie Murphy, and Mallory Jallas initiated this work in 2024, and it will continue this summer. “Our goal in nominating the committee was to both recognize the efforts of the Textbook Affordability Committee and utilize the funds to provide more free materials to students,” said Nadeau.

The Textbook Affordability Committee is a subcommittee of the Academic Senate and has representation from the Student Government Association (SGA), student body at large, teaching faculty, Registrar’s Office, Student Affairs Division, and Milner Library. Assistant Professor Lindsey Skaggs currently chairs the group, which analyzes the cost and affordability of textbook options, educates faculty and students about options for minimizing textbook costs, and collaborates with stakeholders on a variety of initiatives to address textbook affordability at Illinois State University. In addition to programming at Preview, the committee has been building partnerships with the Redbird Spirit Shop and SGA to identify opportunities to reduce students’ costs. “The affordability of textbooks and course materials has a significant impact on student success,” Skaggs said. “The Preview session has directly benefitted students and their families, and I’m grateful for the recognition the committee received with this award.”

Milner Library has had representation on the committee since it was established in 2016, but its support for textbook affordability goes back even further. Milner Library has supported students and faculty alike with a robust course reserves program. This program requires faculty to reach out to the library, however, and library personnel wanted to take a more proactive approach. Since spring 2021, Milner Library has partnered with faculty to license as many assigned e-textbooks as possible using the Registrar Office’s textbook adoptions list to identify options. Dr. Carl Palmer, associate professor in the Department of Politics and Government, is one such partner. “I’ve had students ask me when they needed the textbook by because they were waiting for their financial aid to come in, or for a paycheck from work,” Palmer said. “That this program exists is a godsend for students, and every course I assign texts for, I strive to make sure they are at no cost to students because of this program.”

The price of textbooks has increased considerably in the past decade and a survey conducted by the committee confirms that these costs present a hardship for many students. “The price of textbooks is on the rise with the cost of everything else,” said Ross Vancil, a junior double majoring in legal studies and political science, who serves as the SGA secretary of college affordability and a member of the Textbook Affordability Committee. “The e-textbook program in Milner Library allows students to have access to textbooks for free, which saves students money and allows them to spend that money on essential costs like rent and food. I have personally used e-textbooks from this program multiple times and have been grateful for it. This program has a positive impact on students. It will only grow as more students utilize it and more e-textbooks are added to the catalog.” A Power BI dashboard shows the impact of this program, which has offered almost $8.5 million in potential savings to Illinois State students since its inception. As Vancil indicates, the impact is growing over time.

An array of library resources support all areas of the University’s curriculum. If you are interested in integrating these in your courses, you can explore options in the library’s catalog or in consultation with subject librarians. Faculty are encouraged to provide students with persistent links to digital content rather than sharing files—which may be in violation of copyright and may not be accessible to all users. For assistance creating persistent links, please reach out to liberesourceshelp@IllinoisState.edu. If Milner does not have the materials you need for your teaching, please submit the purchase request form or reach out to Associate Dean for Information Assets Rachel Scott.