AMICAL Currents webinar on 11 February: Alternatives to high-cost textbooks — The UMass Amherst Open Education Initiative

Seeking alternatives to high-cost textbooks: a Case Study of the UMass Amherst Open Education Initiative

The high cost and lack of availability of commercial print textbooks is a major concern to both students and their parents. To address these concerns, the Provost’s Office and the University Libraries of the University of Massachusetts Amherst launched the Open Education Initiative in the Spring of 2011, having saved over $750,000 to date. This model has an implementation strategy that is easy for others to adopt.

Guest speakers:

• Jay Schafer (Director of Libraries, UMass Amherst)
• Marilyn Billings (Scholarly Communication & Special Initiatives Librarian, UMass Amherst)

WHEN: Tuesday, 11 February 2014, 9:00am-10:00am US eastern time (see local time conversion)

This is the second webinar of AMICAL Currents, a series of webinars for AMICAL members on hot topics of interest to librarians, technologists and faculty. AMICAL Currents invites key thinkers and practitioners on each topic to join us for an hour-long webinar, including a presentation followed by Q&A.

The webinar is open to anyone in the AMICAL community. Information about how to join the webinar, and any updates for the event, will be posted to the event page on AMICALconnect (requires AMICAL membership).

Marilyn Billings is the Scholarly Communication & Special Initiatives Librarian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a position she has held since 2006. She provides campus and regional leadership and education in alternative scholarly communication strategies and gives presentations on author rights, new digital publishing models and the role of libraries and digital repositories in today’s research and scholarship endeavors. Current projects include her oversight of the UMass Amherst’s digital repository ScholarWorks and her recent role as the leader of the UMass Amherst’s Open Education Initiative.

Ms. Billings’ recent presentations include “Ditch Your Textbook: Academic Librarians Inspiring Faculty to go “Open” with Steven Bell (Temple University) at the Association of College and Research Libraries Conference in April 2013; “Documenting and Promoting Research & Engagement Using ScholarWorks, UMass Amherst’s Digital Repository” an invited webinar presentation for Berkeley Electronic Press, April 2013; “The Open Education Initiative @ UMass Amherst: Taking a Bite Out of High-Cost Textbooks” with Sarah Hutton at the UMass System Curriculum Redesign Symposium in Shrewsbury, MA Jan 2013; and “Transforming Library Services in a Time of Rapid Scholarly Communication Change” at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Sept 2012. Her most recent publication “Open Educational Resources as Learning Materials: Prospects and Strategies for Research Libraries” Billings et al was featured in the Research Library Issues (RLI) no. 280.

For a more complete listing of presentations and publications, visit http://works.bepress.com/marilyn_billings/

Jay Schafer has been Director of Libraries at the University of Massachusetts Amherst since 2004. He combines his expertise in library collection-building, resource sharing, and facilities space planning with a deep dedication to providing innovative, high quality service to library users. The Learning Commons in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library is one successful example of his belief that libraries must evolve to meet the needs of today’s students while maintaining the high standards of a nationally-ranked research library.

Director Schafer is currently a member of the Executive Board of the Association of Research Libraries. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of LYRASIS, the nation’s largest regional membership organization serving libraries and information professionals. In addition, Director Schafer is past-Chair of the Five College Librarians Council, past-President of the Boston Library Consortium, and previously served on the BioOne Library Advisory Board.

Director Schafer earned his B.A. degree from the University of Texas at El Paso and his M.A. degree in Librarianship from the University of Denver. He has served in library administrative positions at a number of institutions including the University of Colorado at Denver.