Affordable Course Materials: Electronic Textbooks and Open Educational Resources. Edited by Chris Diaz. Chicago, IL: ALA, 2017. 160 p. Paper $65.00 (ISBN 978-0-8389-1580-6).

Editor Chris Diaz opens this book with a boundary-pushing question: “What if I just bought all the textbooks?” The case studies that follow begin with other daring questions, all searching for an answer to the question of how to reduce student costs through affordable course materials. The nine case studies in the book represent universities from across the United States and a global campus (New York University at Shanghai). Each case study presents a different approach to providing affordable course materials, based on the campus context and student needs. Despite the differences, however, this edited volume makes it quite clear that affordability efforts can benefit greatly when they borrow insights from the models in place at other institutions. This is illustrated especially well in the University of Southern Mississippi’s Open Textbook Initiative, adapted from a program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (Josh Cromwell, chapter 7). Other efforts, like that at Louisiana State University Libraries, included reviews and shifts in long-standing collection-development practices and policies (Alice Daugherty and Emily Frank, chapter 4). Perhaps most notable throughout this collection is the variety of types of librarians working on course material projects, further proof that affordability is truly a library-wide initiative. Affordable Course Materials is a perfect quick view into the evolving world of university and library efforts to keep student costs down and educational quality up. Readers will be left asking themselves a new batch of “what if” questions that can only lead to more innovation.—Emma Molls, Publishing Services Librarian, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis