My email is blowing up, so I thought I’d answer a few basic questions here.

This isn’t a deal involving libraries at all. It’s still a “student pays” model, using the inclusive access model of textbook provision. OhioLINK got involved because our consortium of academic higher education libraries, as a practical matter, covers more than 85% of Ohio Department of Higher Education accredited non-profit institutions in the state (and all the public institutions) and we were the only entity in the state that was 1) used to negotiating with publishers and 2) could cover public and private institutions with one agreement. In addition, our libraries tend to be the leaders for other affordable learning initiatives in the state, like OER and alt-textbook programs, and OhioLINK is supporting both those sorts of initiatives already.

It's a price agreement – implementation at each campus is entirely up to the campus. If they are already doing inclusive access, they’ll just do it a lower price from these publishers. If they aren’t doing it, this may provide an incentive to start the process on their campus. There are a lot of necessary partners – students, faculty, campus bookstores, provosts, etc. and each campus is different (especially with respect to bookstore contracts). That’s why we settled on a “net to publisher” model. 

We are concentrating on publishers with demonstrated cost savings across our 91 institutions – first priority is high enrollment in lower division courses, with a title catalog widely assigned in Ohio. That has meant the big five and/or textbook publishers where we already have an existing contract for OhioLINK (Wiley fits both categories).

We do have a vetting procedure for publishers if they are interested – actual demonstrated impact in the state of Ohio is key. If you are a textbook publisher interested in this initiative and think you can make it worth OhioLINK’s time, contact Johnathan Michael at [log in to unmask]edu. We know there is a tremendously long tail so we’ll be prioritizing based on cost savings impact for Ohio undergraduates.

Best, Gwen