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Help Lower Textbook Costs for Students

Are you an instructor who’s concerned about the impact of high textbook costs on your students?

Open Textbook

Did You Know…

  • The high cost of some course materials can impede students’ academic success.
  • The cost of textbooks is rising at a rate of 4 times inflation.
  • Seven out of 10 students don’t purchase a required textbook during their academic career because of cost.
  • Sixty percent of students have delayed purchasing textbooks until they’ve received their financial aid.

Open Textbooks

Open textbooks can help alleviate the burden of textbook costs for students and provide faculty with content that can be customized for their course. Open textbooks are full, real textbooks, used by many faculty across the country, and licensed to be freely used, edited, and distributed.

What You Can Do

Attend Open Oregon’s virtual Open Textbook Workshops. The one-hour session will provide information about open textbooks and how to find discipline-specific titles. After the workshop you can earn $200-$300 by writing a review of an open textbook or other open materials. If you have already attended a past workshop and want to write another review, contact Sue Kunda to request a new survey link.

Campus Printing FAQ

library printers

How much does printing cost? A single black and white page (one side) printout costs 1 print credit. A single color page (one side) printout costs 5 print credits. Students receive 225 print credits per term.

How do I know how many print credits I have? Log in to the WOU Portal and your balance will be displayed on your homepage.

How do I buy more print credits? Purchase additional credits through WolfWeb under the Student Menu. They start at 50 credits for $2.50 and go up from there. When you buy additional credits they are immediately available for use.

What if I don’t use all of my print credits? Whatever credits you don’t use roll over to the next term. However, accounts are zeroed out before each Fall term begins.

Sign up to get texts from the library

Have you ever wished the library would just text you when the items you order through Summit or interlibrary loan are ready to pick up? If so, you’re in luck because now we can!

To sign up for texts from Hamersly:

  1.  Log into your My Account in Primo
  2.  Click on Personal Settings–>Edit
  3. Select the checkbox next to the ‘SMS Wanted’ field and enter your phone number in the ‘SMS Number’ field.
  4. Click Save Changes, and that’s it! You will now get text notifications from the library. If you ever want to stop getting texts, just follow the same process and uncheck the box.

Please note: this is an opt-in service and is in addition to the current email notification system, not in place of it.

Important tips for researching with Google Scholar

Google Scholar

Rule #1 of using Google Scholar to do research for your class assignments: never, ever pay for an article.

In many cases, links to full text scholarly articles (like the kind that Google Scholar finds) are through subscription sources. But the library already pays for subscriptions to many of these sources already so that you, as a WOU student, can access them for free.

Google Scholar doesn’t know you’re a WOU student though, unless you tell it! You do this by changing your “Library links” settings. 

Once you change this setting, Google will recognize you as a WOU student – provided you are signed into your Google account when you search (e.g. by signing into the Portal or into your email). Want to see how to change these settings? Watch this short video.

If you’re signed in and have set your “Library links” to connect to WOU, Google Scholar will show you the “Find It @ WOU” link with your results. This link will give you access to the full text of the scholarly article if possible, or it will tell you how to request the article you want through the library. Either way, you don’t have to pay for it!

More tips for using Google Scholar:

  • Google Scholar doesn’t have everything. You will find the most results in science and technology and the least results in the humanities. If you are searching for a topic in the humanities, try searching in a database specific to your subject.
  • Find a good article on your topic? Google Scholar gives you a list of other articles that have cited the article you are looking at. So if you find a good article, this will help you find more just like it. Look for the “Cited by” link to use this feature.
  • Try searching using only the last name, or last name and first initial when searching for author names. Many articles only include the last name and first initial of the author, rather than including their full first name.
  • Google Scholar casts a wide net when searching, which often means you initially get an overwhelming number of results and will need to make your search more specific. Using the “advanced search” feature is the easiest way to narrow your results. The advanced search form will pop up if you click on the arrow on the right end of the Google Scholar search box. From there, you can fill in more search information.

Our building is closed but our services are still strong

In accordance with the Governor’s Executive Orders 20-12 and 20-09, the Library building is closed to the public until further notice. However, we are dedicated to serving the WOU community, and our remote services are strong! Our COVID-19 page details these remote services.

August Intersession (August 8th – September 27th) remote library service hours

  • Mondays – Thursdays, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

2020 Fall Term building hours (subject to change)

  • Monday – Friday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Library remote service hours may change due to service demand and fluid extenuating circumstances.
Contact us for more information

Hotspot Checkout

WOU’s Library lends a limited number of hotspots to facilitate remote coursework.

As with all other materials available from the library, WOU covers the cost of these hotspots, with no expense passed on to the borrower. 

However, hotspot borrowing through the library is limited to students who are Pell Grant- or Tuition Equity-eligible. WOU’s Office of Financial Aid verifies eligibility prior to the library lending the hotspot. In addition, residents of WOU Housing are ineligible to borrow hotspots.

We have hotspots on the T-Mobile and Verizon networks. Check both services’ coverage maps for your location. Past bad experience with a network does not necessarily reflect current coverage. 

 See more Hotspots FAQ.

Request a hotspot with the form below. After you submit the form, WOU Housing and Financial Aid are automatically notified. When your eligibility is confirmed, you’ll get email from libweb@wou.edu with instructions. 

Don’t see the form? Click on the title or the + on the right side, or open it in a new window. 

Hotspot Checkout Request Form

Need help? There’s a tutor in the library for that.

There is lots of tutoring available in the library. Hours and location vary, see “Tutoring Hours”————–>

–>The Writing Center: Sun-Thurs from 7-10pm in Room 116; any course and instruction level.

–>The Math Center: varying times in Room 228; both Math and non-Math courses like statistics.

–>The Science Learning Center: varying times in Room 124; Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Earth Science courses.

–>The English Tutoring Center: Mon-Thurs from 7-10pm in Room 228; help for English language learners with reading, listening to, and/or speaking.

–>The Digital Media Center: Hours vary by term, on the 2nd floor of the library; technology-related projects and class assignments.

 

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All about textbooks

textbooksCheck out our Textbooks Guide for options to buy, rent, and borrow textbooks for your classes this term.

You’ll also find info about where to sell your textbooks back once you’re done with them.