Affordable Textbooks and Course Materials

The St. Catherine University Library encourages faculty to work with their subject specialist librarian in advance of adopting a textbook. 

Many textbook publishers do not provide electronic purchasing options for libraries. Libraries must purchase or license ebooks in a different way than an individual user might. So even if a course text is available for students to purchase as an ebook, it may not be available for libraries to license or purchase (regardless of budget) in a format other than print. In courses that have adopted textbooks by these publishers, students who do not purchase the textbook will not have any alternative access to the textbook content. Reach out to your subject specialist librarian to discuss options and alternatives. 

The Library has many collections of ebooks on various platforms (Ebsco, Ebook Central, etc.) as well as individually licensed ebooks. Ebook licenses for libraries are different from those provided to individuals purchasing via Amazon or publisher websites. Common models for libraries ebook licenses are: 

Single User License - a single license will allow one user to access to access the ebook at any one time.

Multi-User License - a multi-user license allows 3 users to log in to the ebook at exactly the same time.

Unlimited License - an unlimited amount of users can log in to the ebook at exactly the same time.

Publishers decide whether to provide their book titles in ebook format for libraries to license or buy. Publishers also set the amount of content that can be downloaded and printed. These parameters may be noted on the ebook record in LibSearch as well as on the item itself. 

The Library's journal collection includes nearly 60,000 titles in every discipline.

Finding articles in your discipline: Find a database in your subject (see link below). Search for and locate articles that fit with your course curriculum.

Do you have an article's citation and wonder if we have the journal? See link below to search for a specific journal title.

Linking to an article:  Our subscriptions to these journals includes copyright permissions that allow faculty to link to these articles within their Brightspace D2L or Canvas courses, embed them in online syllabi, or to send them to students by email. We suggest that you link to articles by giving students persistent links (see link to guidance on linking library resources).

We cannot promise to purchase every item requested. Purchase decisions and details about purchases will be communicated to the requestor if we cannot accommodate the request.

To request that the Library purchase an item, please contact the subject librarian for your program or department.

Access streaming video, DVD's, images, audio and more in the Library's media collection. The Library has purchased rights for the items you find in our collection, so they can be streamed, linked in your course management system, or shown in class.

For assistance finding additional materials, please contact the subject librarian for your program or department.