The affordability of required textbooks is a top priority for the campus community. Textbooks for most subjects are expensive and may create a financial burden for students. Students often share or rent textbooks, or sometimes do not have a textbook to use at all. Many other major university libraries as well as ours are also now evaluating ways to help make textbooks affordable.
Textbooks are different from trade or regular subject books because they typically contain study questions, discussion topics, and study guides in addition to covering the core concepts of the subject. Textbooks may be published as printed books or electronic books, but are not inclusive of workbooks, lab manuals, or other consumable course materials. Compounding the complexity of maintaining a textbook collection within the Library,, publishers frequently update or retitle books into new versions or editions, so that replacements would be continuously required.
The UM Libraries has limited print and e-textbooks available for use and the following pages of this guide will help you find them.
Textbook acquisition policy: We will explore ways of providing the greatest number of print and e-textbooks to the University community within budget and space constraints.
ILL is unable to borrow textbooks from other libraries. This page explains some of the reasons why.
