How to Explore the Open Textbook Library at the University of Minnesota

Are you a librarian or librarian of a university? Want to build a library of open resources in your school, but don’t know where to look for examples? This article can help you.

Table of Contents

Introducing the Open Textbook Library at the University of Minnesota

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Go to the homepage of the University of Minnesota’s open textbook library, at http://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/ . This homepage is divided into 3 parts: (1) the first part; (2) body part; and (3) the foot part. The following is an introduction to each of those sections.

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Introduction to the first part. This part includes:

Search. Located directly below the page’s intro images is the site’s search engine. It includes: (1) the search field, where the default text is blurred Search the Library – Search in the library; (2) Go button, used to perform the search command.
Menu bar. The menu bar of the page is very simple, including the following 3 menus:
- Browse subjects – Browse by subject. This section is also presented and introduced through the body of the homepage. There are a total of 12 topics, including:
  - Accounting & Finance – Finance – Accounting.
  - Business, Management & Marketing – Business, Management & Marketing.
  - Computer Science & Information Systems – Computer Science & Information Systems.
  - Economics – Economics.
  - Engineering – Engineering.
  - Foreign Languages – Foreign languages.
  - General Education – General Education.
  - Humanities & Language – Language & Humanities.
  - Law – Law.
  - Mathematics & Statistics – Mathematics and Statistics.
  - Natural & Phisical Sciences – Natural and physical sciences.
  - Social Sciences – Social Sciences.
- Our Textbook – Our Textbook. This section outlines the criteria for all textbooks included in the open textbook library and your ability to contribute your books to the open textbook library. This content will be covered in detail in another article.
  
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  - Submit a Book – Recommend a book. You not only have the ability to search, select books to download and use, but also have the ability to propose book contributions to the University of Minnesota’s open textbook library, by filling out the form.
  - Discovery – Explore. The Open Textbook Network offers a cumulative file of MARC (Machine-Readable Cataloging) bibliographic records for the contents of an open textbook library. This single file is comprehensive and includes records for all titles since its initial release in July 2016. This cumulative file will be updated monthly, and the list will be released if any titles are removed from the library. MARC recordings are in the public domain and are available under the Creative Commons CC0 license.
    
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- About Us – About us.
  - Friends – Friends. The Open Textbook Network is part of the Open Textbook Network – OTN ( Open Textbook Network ^{[1] X Research Sources} ) of universities, groups, and institutions that have made significant contributions to the development and success of an open textbook library that promotes access, affordability, and student success through the use of open textbooks.
    
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  - Contact Us – Contact us. Here you can find addresses to contact: (1) Open Textbook Library; (2) Open Textbook Network; and (3) The Center for Open Education .
Open library’s motto: Make a difference in your students’ lives with free, openly-licensed textbooks – Make a difference in your student life with free, open-licensed textbooks.

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The ultimate purpose of open textbooks: Textbooks every student can access and afford – Textbooks that every student can access and afford.
- Open textbook definition. Open textbooks are textbooks that are funded, published, and licensed for free use, adaptation, and distribution. The books have been reviewed by teachers from various colleges and universities to assess their quality. The books can be downloaded for free, or printed at a low cost. All textbooks or used in many higher education institutions; or at branches of institutions, learning societies, or professional organizations.

How to present each topic and each textbook

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Presentation of each topic. The presentation of each of the 12 topics listed above is identical: at the top is the title of the topic, below is a list of textbooks on that topic.

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How to present each open textbook by topic. The presentation of each open textbook follows an identical form, with the information presented in 2 columns, from the left column to the right column, with the following contents:

Thumbnails cover with book title, peer review count in parentheses, and textbook rating by star count (5 stars the highest).
Publication information of open textbooks:
- Publishing year
- ISBN World Standard Book Number
- Publishing unit; usually with a link to the publisher’s website.
Read This Book – Read this book. Here’s how to download and read selected textbooks, come with format(s) like: PDF, Kindle, e-pub, mobi (for mobile devices). The minimum and common format for downloading is PDF.
Conditions of Use – Conditions of Use. The license of the textbook and a link to that license. In the case of the specific example here, the textbook is licensed as CC BY-NC-SA. With this license, you must acknowledge the author’s credit, not to use it for commercial purposes; you have the right to customize the content of the book, but your derivative work must also carry the same license, which is CC BY-NC-SA.
Review – Review again. List each review. The specific example here has 9 revisions, there will also be 9 repetitions with the following information:
- Rating each review according to the number of stars, the highest is 5 stars.
- Personal information of the person who conducted the review: full name, academic title, academic degree, place of work and date of completion of the textbook review.
- Content of the reviewer’s textbook review.
Table of Contents – Table of Contents. Textbook table of contents by chapters.
About the Book – Information about the book. Textbook summary.
About the Contributors – Information about the contributors. In this section you will find information about:
- Author(s) – Author(s), including unnamed and or unwilling authors, but with author summaries and relevant author career information textbook topics.
  
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Recommendation

If you or your university library has a desire to build an open library of textbooks, this is a great model for reference in many respects.

Steps

Introducing the Open Textbook Library at the University of Minnesota

How to present each topic and each textbook

Recommendation

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