College of Marin divided over textbook loan program

Faculty, staff and administrators at College of Marin are in disagreement over the future of a successful textbook loan program that has been operating out of the college library in Kentfield since 2014.

Library staff and administrators say the program, which has loaned out up to 900 free textbooks annually over the last decade — saving students an estimated $1 million or more over that time — needs to be moved out of the library.

“While the library is proud that we have sustained the program for the last 11 years, it has presented issues around scalability since its inception,” Sarah Frye, the library department chair, told college trustees at their Nov. 18 board meeting.

“The library is here to serve the entire campus and the broader community,” Frye said. “The library textbook program doesn’t serve all of STEM,” she added, using the acronym for science, technology, engineering and math. “It doesn’t even serve all sections of several courses.”

Frye said the program’s burden on library staff has increased.

“While the cost of older-edition textbooks is low, the cost of faculty and staff time to run the program is high,” Frye said. She said library staff in recent years have also taken on new responsibilities for loaning laptops, Wi-Fi hot spots and other technology to students, increasing their duties even more.

For these reasons, and because of the upcoming library move to the new Center for Student Success building that is nearing completion along College Avenue, library staff unanimously voted to terminate the program, Frye told trustees.

According to Jeffrey Reeder, dean of math and sciences, he and other staff intend to remove all the program textbooks from the library and redistribute them to each of the 10 or so participating faculty members, mostly in math and science, by the start of the spring term in late January.

Each participating faculty member will be responsible for handling student access to the textbooks in classes, and for tracking the textbooks and making sure they are returned at the end of the term.

Reeder and Lauren Servais, dean of arts and humanities, said they will not only work to support faculty who are textbook program participants, but are also researching ways to increase service to more classes and sections.

By doing so, they plan to increase equity in instructional materials access across the entire campus, Servais said.

“The textbook program is one part of a larger conversation,” Servais said. “The work of equity is ongoing. There’s conversations that we need to have, and professional learning that we need to engage in.”

Patrick Kelly, a chemistry professor, told trustees on Nov. 18 that he does not agree with the decision to end the library textbook program.

“For the most vulnerable students — particularly those in STEM — this program has guaranteed that they will have textbooks in their hands on Day 1,” Kelly said. He does not think the faculty textbook management option will be a good substitute.

“This decision is unconscionable and represents a profound disservice to our students,” Kelly said.

He said he rejects as “excuses” the reasons given by administration for ending the library program, such as cost or equity. He said those issues could be addressed while still keeping the textbook program in the library.

For example, Kelly said, the college could enlist students on work-study or part-time faculty to help with the textbook program if the full-time staff members are overburdened.

Online instruction will not be able to fill the gaps, he said.

“Have you ever tried to read a chemistry textbook online?” Kelly said.

John Erdmann, a library staff member since 2007 and the staff member who established the textbook library program in 2014, also opposes the change. Erdmann, who is based at the Indian Valley Campus in Novato, said the program has languished since about 2018 and “been in steady decline” since then.

“Funding priorities have drifted, communication has narrowed, books weren’t returned, and the program’s founding purpose — to ensure that every student has the right textbook on day one — has been sidelined,” he said in an email.

Erdmann said staffing at the Kentfield library is down because of several veteran staff members taking early retirement.

“The broader pattern is unmistakable,” Erdmann said. “Experienced employees are leaving, not for lack of commitment, but because the environment no longer allows them to do their best work.”

Servais said the debate and discussion about the library textbook program was a healthy indication that faculty and staff want what’s best for students.

“I think it’s important that folks feel strongly here,” she said. “That they really do want to meet our mission of providing equitable learning for our students.”

The library is expected to be relocated to the Center for Student Success when it opens early next year.