Canadian Roundtable on Academic Materials and You

Last week I wrote about the high cost of academic materials including textbooks, and the different option you have as a student when selecting your academic materials. If you missed it, you can check the blog address above for the whole scoop. Academic materials, such as text books and course-packs, are very important to students as well as faculty. For students they can be a supplement to the ideas and information presented in class, and for professors they can be an additional tool to relay the information to students.

Due to the high importance and high cost of academic materials, 21 universities from across Canada, including Saint Mary’s, have joined to create CRAM, the Canadian Roundtable on Academic Materials. This new organization represents the student associations and bookstore from these campuses.

The first meeting took place in November of 2008 in Toronto. This was initially organized by the student’s association and bookstore from the University of Alberta. The members discussed the direction of the new organization, different ideas about what CRAM could accomplish, and shared information about the issues. They decided to create an ongoing medium for cooperation between Canadian bookstores and students. The group will also ideally include all stakeholders, including faculty representative, the publishers, and librarians.

This past June, I had the opportunity to attend the second major meeting of CRAM . The conference was very informative and productive. We had the chance to meet with key representatives from the publishers and express our concerns over the rising cost of textbooks. We also had information sessions on copyright issues, what other campuses are doing to make a difference, among others. There was lots of discussion between the student representatives about running book exchanges, working with the administration on our campuses, and organizing an awareness campaign, all of which SMUSA are currently focusing on. CRAM is also planning media releases to draw attention to this issue, as well as advocacy campaigns targeting various levels of government.

CRAM and SMUSA want to create awareness on the side of the students, the faculty and bookstores and ensure that we play a role in helping to bring down the cost of these materials to students. Overall, the primary goal is create an affordable option for academic materials for all students.