Australian University Broadens Access to E-textbooks
ANN ARBOR, MI, June 17, 2018 – Charles Sturt University (CSU), one of Australia's largest institutions of online learning, has joined forces with ProQuest to provide many of its textbooks to students electronically through the Ebook Central® platform.
With nearly 70 percent of its students studying remotely, CSU has always been proactive in supporting its large cohort of students who live far from campus and do not have immediate access to libraries. The Ebook Central platform allows the CSU library to offer much of the university’s required reading electronically, creating an accessible, flexible and affordable learning experience for its 45,000 students.
CSU students and faculty have used Ebook Central for years for ebooks, but the e-textbook collection is new and allows large numbers of CSU students to access course material without the risk of infringing Australian copyright law. With CSU’s access model, faculty can create and share links to the required reading for their courses – from individual chapters to complete texts. Three users from anywhere in the world can access the same textbook content concurrently, reducing the number of turnaways.
“With content from the world’s top academic publishers, Ebook Central is helping CSU manage its ebook collection — including discovery, selection, purchasing, administration, and usage reporting — all through a single platform,” said Jim Holmes, Senior Vice President, ProQuest Global Sales and Marketing. “We’re thrilled to partner with CSU to help reduce students’ financial burdens and help them achieve academic excellence."
“In 2016, CSU initiated a project to acquire a high percentage of our print resources in electronic format. We negotiated license agreements with various publishers to purchase high-use titles, including eReserve readings and titles frequently requested on inter-library loans,” said Buddhika Dissanayake, Manager Collection Services. “By working together with ProQuest to provide the required resources for students, we’ve already acquired more than 200 electronic textbooks, with our collection continuing to grow.”
“I live a long way away and therefore do not have the time to wait for books,” said one distance-learning CSU student in the CSU library’s biennial survey. “I rely on the online resources to complete my work…eBooks are a fantastic resource.”
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