The bookstore, often the first stop for students searching for course materials, is well positioned to collect information about open textbook adoptions and sell printed copies to those who want or need them.

The bookstore contains the campus experts on textbooks and materials required for its institution’s courses. Bookstore staff note faculty adoptions, stock and manage inventory, and assist students buying these resources, while simultaneously maximizing student savings and attending to student concerns.

Post-secondary bookstores have also had to keep up with the times as sales from textbooks have eroded due to digital books, books for rent, the used market, and big box and discount online stores. To survive, campus bookstores — which, decades ago, carried mostly textbooks — have downsized and diversified by carrying products like clothing and snacks.^[1] Rajiv Jhangiani, Associate Vice Provost of Open Education at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, says that on-campus print-on-demand options provide a new potential revenue stream for bookstores.

University and college bookstores can, and often do, work with their campus’s print service to arrange for print-on-demand copies of open textbooks and other educational resources. These arrangements might involve individual orders from students or bulk orders requested by instructors for courses. Mark Adams, Director of Ancillary Services for Langara College, is responsible for overseeing bookstore and print services operations at his college bookstore, where he says students continually request hard copies of books.

“Giving students options,” he says, “is ideal.”

The below list of considerations is a starting point for bookstore and course materials managers and staff to explore this topic.

Bookstore templates

Asking faculty to report open textbooks as adoptions — even if the online version is free — helps students who look to the bookstore for assistance identifying and gathering course materials. Below are two templates that can assist the bookstore in this effort:

• Faculty open textbook adoption form [Word file]
• Open textbook adoption checklist [Word file]

Bookstores in action

University of British Columbia (UBC)

The UBC Bookstore has a page called Instructors: Course Materials Resources that includes a section on OER and links to open repositories. The bookstore also posts links to open repositories on the list of UBC Vancouver Publisher Contacts and allows instructors to place orders for open resources. A procedure is in place to add this information to student book lists and the course registration website, according to Jennifer Stacey, Course Materials Manager. If a faculty member lets the bookstore know they are using an open resource, the bookstore will provide printed copies if printable files are available and the material can be properly bound.

Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU)

In KPU’s LibGuide on open educational resources, there is a page with a print on demand setup tutorial video that instructs faculty to submit to the KPU printshop print-optimized PDF files for open textbooks selected for their course. Students pay for these books in the bookstore or online and can pick up their order 24–48 hours later, using the rain check procedure. Books are available in loose-leaf format.

Douglas College

At the Douglas College Bookstore, the Open Education Resource Assistance section of the Douglas College faculty intranet provides this guidance to instructors:

Douglas College Bookstore is committed to the accessibility and affordability of course materials. In addition to digital initiatives and involvement with national associations that enable us to find lower cost alternatives, we also actively support the Open Educational Resource movement. If OER materials are adopted, students who wish to print the material may quickly use their allotment of free printing. If you would like the OER materials available for students to have in printed form, the Bookstore can, dependent upon the rights associated with the material, reproduce the materials into a physical Coursepack. The Coursepack could be listed as optional for the course and be available for sale at the Bookstore in a double sided format. To begin this process, please contact the Coursepack & Copyright Coordinator. If the OER materials are available in printed format direct from OpenStax, the materials can be purchased by the store for sale as an optional item for the course. As OERs continue to evolve, so will the Bookstore, but here are a few things that we are doing right now to assist with this initiative:

• We include listings of required OERs on our Booklist so students can see all required course materials “at-a-glance” (on their personalized booklist).
• The Bookstore can provide inexpensive print-on-demand options for students who prefer to study and make notes in traditional print form.
• The Bookstore collaborates with faculty members and educational departments to ensure that OER communication and delivery is optimized.
• The Bookstore is dedicated to keeping up-to date on new trends in OERs to ensure we are able to adjust and add services that will improve the student experience on our campus.​