Textbook Affordability

We believe all students deserve to be able to access course texts. The high costs of textbooks and other course materials prohibit access and perpetuate inequity, and Barnard librarians and library staff are partnering with students, faculty, and staff to increase access. The purpose of this page is to highlight the steps the Barnard Library is taking to promote accessibility of texts on our campus.

Barnard Library materials do not incur fines; our priority is to support student access to library materials. We want to recognize that this policy was requested by student advocates.

We forgive all past fines incurred on Barnard materials before our change in policy (we cannot do so for other Columbia Libraries). If you need to have Barnard Library material fines forgiven (including for transcript/diploma blocks), email us at library@barnard.edu.

The Barnard FLI Partnership Library is a collection of Barnard Library dedicated to lending textbooks to and in collaboration with first-generation and/or low-income undergraduate students. We add materials to the collection based on assessment of required courses for Barnard majors. We update the collection based on use data, and as a result we focus on expensive textbooks for STEM and language learning classes. Along with Course Reserves, the Barnard FLI Partnership Library is part of the Barnard Library Textbook Affordability Programs. 

The Barnard FLI Partnership Library was founded as and continues to be a collaboration between the Barnard Library, Columbia First-Generation Low-Income Partnership student organization, and Barnard SGA. The collection is also a sibling collection to the Columbia FLI Partnership Library, located on the fourth floor of the Butler Library. The creation of both collections was made possible by the work of student organizers and their initiation of a collaboration between Barnard Library and the Columbia University Library IT department team.

For more information about the history of the collection, please visit the Barnard FLI Partnership Library webpage.

More information for students is on the Find & Borrow Course Materials webpage.

More information for faculty is on the Setting Up Course Reserves & Barnard FLI Partnership Library Connections webpage.

Course Reserves is a program of the Barnard Library dedicated to connecting students with free copies of required materials for their courses to make the curriculum more accessible. We do this through purchasing access or print copies of expensive textbooks, expensive anthologies, and/or works by authors/directors of color and/or about racial justice. We use curriculum assessment to research and purchase these materials for required courses for Barnard majors, and we also put these materials on Course Reserve by faculty request. Where possible, we license and link unlimited-user e-resources; if those are not available, we purchase print copies and make them available for short-term lending. Along with the Barnard FLI Partnership Library, Course Reserves is part of the Barnard Library Textbook Affordability Programs.

More information for students is on the Find & Borrow Course Materials webpage.

More information for faculty is on the Faculty Guide to Course Reserves & the Barnard FLI Partnership Library.

Personal Librarians and other BLAIS instructors will work closely with faculty to support development and use of Open Access and Open Educational Resources in Barnard courses. OA and OER materials are freely accessible to all on the open web and build an ethic of open scholarship.

For more information on how to find, use and build OER, please contact your Personal Librarian.

Faculty, for information on using Library collections to make required course materials available at no cost to your students, please visit the Faculty Guide to Course Reserves & the Barnard FLI Partnership Library.

Thank you for your interest in supporting access to course texts through Barnard Library.

If you would like to donate to the work of Barnard Library in creating a more accessible education, please contact Barnard Development at development@barnard.edu.

If you have questions, please reach out to us at library@barnard.edu.