Faculty Resources
For more than 60 years, the University Store has been committed to making our students’ education as economical as possible. During an average semester we have 3,000 different textbook titles on our shelves. Our number one goal is to provide affordable choices to the students of Oklahoma State University and we work directly with the faculty in accomplishing that goal.
Overwhelmed with trying to decide which textbooks to choose for your courses? There are online resources that can assist you with the textbook adoption process.
- Faculty Center Network is designed with the college world in mind and has created more than 2,300 unique subject areas, laid out in a custom taxonomy based on a generalized college curriculum. Within each subject, they rank the books according to their usage, and allow you to filter by those rankings, so you don't have to click on book after book to find the cream of the crop.
- Books In Print combines the most trusted and authoritative source of bibliographic information with powerful search, discovery and collection development tools designed specifically to streamline the book discovery and acquisition process. Books In Print helps you search the market place, find the right titles, and explore all known format options, including eBook sources. This indispensable resource offers professional reviews, table of contents, full-text previews, cover images, author biographies, award information, summaries and annotations, and much more.
Please download the Excel worksheet below to help with your department’s adoption process.
We realize that textbook adoption deadlines may seem early, and affect the amount of time you have to review and choose books for the next semester. These dates are set by the provost office in an effort to keep the university in compliance with federal law that requires textbook information to be available to students at the time of their enrollment. It also takes time to process the large volume of textbook adoption forms for every course Oklahoma State offers. There are all kinds of variables that may need to be pinned down in processing each book adoption request, like: resolving problems with requests and communicating back to faculty; preparing lists for used book wholesalers; seeking out availability and best prices among multiple distributors; ascertaining when new editions will be available; finding out whether textbooks bundled with other components can be obtained separately; and reviewing enrollment figures and sales histories to help determine how many copies to buy. Additionally, because thousands of college bookstores order books within the same period, wholesalers and publishers need time to process and ship the flood of orders.
Please know we are here to help. If you have further questions about textbook adoptions, please see our FAQ page or contact the University Store at (405) 744-5238.
One principal way the store tries to make textbooks more affordable is by stocking as many used books as possible. Students demand used books – used copies nearly always sell out before new copies. So where do we get used books? We buy back used copies students do not plan to keep for future reference. We also purchase used books from national wholesale companies, who buy them from students at other campuses. End-of-semester buyback not only provides a healthy supply of used books for the next semester, it also gives money back to the students who do not wish to keep a particular book. Last year, the University Store gave almost $1 million back to students during textbook buybacks.
The buyback process really begins when the University Store receives the textbook adoption forms from faculty for the next semester. Only when the store has your course requirements can we determine which used books to buy back from students on the Oklahoma State campus, and which books to order from wholesalers and publishers.
The earlier we have textbook adoption forms in hand, the more used copies we can obtain from students and used book wholesalers. That’s why we need your textbook adoption information months before the next semester begins. College bookstores across the country are competing for a limited supply of used books, particularly for newer titles, which of course have fewer total used copies in circulation. If wholesalers know our campus is seeking certain titles, they will be in a better position to purchase them for us on other campuses. The store may work with more than one wholesaler in an effort to secure more used copies for students. And, if wholesalers cannot furnish all the used books we need, we still have time to order new books for delivery before classes begin.