SGA Textbook Initiative: Home

Research into affordable learning and textbook costs shows that some students drop out of college or get behind in their work because they cannot afford the cost of their textbooks. The average cost of textbooks for some required courses at USA is $137.52. The minimum cost for some of these books is $35, while the maximum cost is $301.00. The Marx Library owns some of the textbooks in various editions, but often those
editions are outdated and cannot be used by students in current classes.

In order to help alleviate some of the burden, the University of South Alabama Libraries, in 2019, partnered with the Student Government Association to purchase a copy of textbooks for core, general education classes with high enrollment. This initiative was supposed to have been launched in the spring semester of 2020, but like many other projects was postponed because of COVID-19.

The funding provided by the SGA has been used to purchase 16 textbooks for high enrollment courses for the fall of 2021. These titles are housed at the Marx Library circulation desk and are available for checkout for one (1) day.

The University Libraries purchased 16 titles from the funds provided by the Student Government Association. The ones below are available now. More will be added as they arrive and are cataloged. All books from this collection can be searched for in SOUTHcat by using "Sponsored by the Student Government Association (SGA)" as a keyword term. All titles, except the one ebook, are housed at the Marx Library circulation desk and are available for checkout for one (1) day.