This past Monday, Bryan Reece spoke to the ASCC Cabinet about a textbook program developed primarily by the Humanities and Social Sciences Division for the entire Cerritos campus to restructure and rethink the way textbooks are bought and sold.

Reece explained that this program started three months ago when he was asked to look at how they can combine publishers’ content with the Cerritos course management system.

When a student or faculty member opens a book, it may also include multimedia content.

Adding this to the fact that this school’s course management system, TalonNet, it is not a gigantic program and since it is small, all that content that goes with all these publishers doesn’t integrate with our course management system.

Reece added that faculty members want to use all this content but can’t bring it into TalonNet.

He explained that he started looking to provide a solution to this and started approaching this idea, which developed to be know as the Cerritos College Textbook Program.

“If we go forward with this idea, we could find a way to restructure how we buy and sell books at Cerritos College,” he noted.

Looking forward into development, Reece explained that this program was developed in partnership with Pearson, which he stated that they “have the most sophisticated technology in regard to textbooks and are also a publisher.”

However, in order for this to happen, there are several “stakeholders” who have to agree with the goals of the textbook program in order for the program to continue.

Some of these stakeholders include the college president, the ASCC, the library, Student Activities and many more in order for the program to be working on its goals.

Some of these goals inclue:

• Integration – integrating publisher’s content with TalonNet,
• CMS – increasing standard use of TalonNet across campus,
• Reserve – enhancing use of library reserve for students that cannot afford books,
• Cost – discounting books for Cerritos students,
• Bookstore – increasing sales through Cerritos College Bookstore,
• Global Studies – funding the Global Studies Program and
• Technical Support – expanding technical support for students and faculty.