Librarians and Educational Resources
Libraries support faculty with educational collections in various formats—on-site, online, and open access—including books, e-textbooks, coursepacks, educational platforms, videos, 3D materials, and VR content. The Working Group on Educational Resources (WG on ER) aims to help librarians in finding, using, creating, and sharing educational resources.
How to Find
Discovering educational content requires a distinct approach, considering factors such as educational level, language, quality assurance, and accessibility. Traditionally, libraries have supported teaching by providing textbooks, ensuring books on reading lists are available, and assisting faculty in selecting appropriate versions. In recent years, reading list software has been integrated with library systems to streamline this process. However, finding and providing content aligned with intended learning outcomes requires more than traditional library discovery methods.
How to Use
Copyright restrictions play a crucial role in the use of educational materials. What content can be used for specific educational levels? Can materials be edited and reused in different contexts? Are e-textbooks only available at high costs for single-user access, or can libraries collaborate to influence publisher models? Addressing these questions is essential to ensuring broad and affordable access to learning resources.
How to Create
Educational resources should not merely transfer knowledge but should engage students in active learning and participation. What implications does this have for creating educational materials? Which pedagogical approaches can be applied? How can we ensure quality without traditional peer review processes like those in research publications? Various platforms and publishing tools exist to help educators create e-textbooks. Libraries can play a key role in setting up these platforms, supporting their use, and managing content.
How to Share
In online teaching, educators create valuable courses and content that should be shared with colleagues. Libraries can assist in preserving and distributing this content while ensuring proper licensing and copyright compliance. OER repositories have long existed, but their use and demand have grown significantly, increasing the need for librarians to manage them and support faculty in their use.
Supporting open education through Open Educational Resources (OER) is an expanding role for librarians. While “OER Librarian” is a recognized job title in the U.S., European libraries are increasingly engaging in this area. Their involvement includes practical support for OER creation, sharing, and discovery, as well as contributing to strategy, advocacy, and policy development—leveraging experience from the Open Access and Open Science movements.