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Open Educational Resources (OERs): Library Services Support

This guide is designed to help Minnesota State University, Mankato faculty find, create, evaluate, and incorporate Open Educational Resources and Affordable Textbooks in the classroom and online.

Course Materials Support from Library Services

Your course materials are chosen by you with great care to provide the pedagogical experience important to you.  You know which materials you want to use in your courses.  The library and its partners, however, can help you provide copies or expand access to your course materials for your students.  These include, but are not limited to:

Placing Course Materials in the Library

You can place some course materials in the library through Library Course Reserves or the Maverick Textbook Reserve Program. A complete list of course materials from both can be found on the library’s Textbooks & Course Reserves Page. If you have questions, please ask us.

  • Library Course Reserves
    You can place other materials on Course Reserve outside of the Maverick Textbook Reserve Program. This course reserve collection includes both library-owned materials and faculty owned materials and can be print or electronic materials. Get more information on how to place materials on Library Course Reserves.
  • Maverick Textbook Reserve Program
    A longstanding program under the combined efforts of Student Government, Barnes and Noble Bookstore, and Library Services, this service provides textbooks for undergraduate classes with high enrollment numbers for short term checkout from Library Services. 

Requesting Library Materials

Contact your subject specific library liaison to request resources to use for or supplement your course. Please note not all resources are available for the Library to purchase.

Using Library Articles and/or Book Chapters

Many courses use articles or chapters instead of or in addition to textbooks.  If this is the case for you, we strongly encourage linking to articles through D2L as a best practice rather than downloading the PDF and sharing it.  Check out our how-to guide .  Need help curating a list of articles or tracking down a difficult source that could work as course readings? Librarians are happy to help you search for great resources that fit your needs!

Using Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and access barriers, and which also carry legal permission for open use.  OERs can take on many forms from textbooks, course packets, games, supplemental or ancillary materials - anything that is used to support access to knowledge or materials used for educational purposes.  OERs can include materials that you adapt or remix from other open sources, materials found in the public domain, or materials that you create yourself and release with an open license.  Librarians and Instructional Designers can help you learn more!  

Designing your own OERs?  Here are ways to make your open content ACCESSIBLE!  

These are just some of the ways that the library can help you.  To learn more, contact us

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