To the editor:

We were very pleased to see the Gazette run the Aug. 9 story "Change, albeit slow, offers relief from costly college textbooks." In addition to cost, accessibility, content, licensing and available format are issues that all college students face, including those at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The university libraries are actively pursuing ways to alleviate these barriers to higher education.

To that end, there will be an event on Sept. 21, "How Can a Textbook Be Free? Keeping Higher Education Affordable With Open Resources." Guest speakers will include Eric Frank, UMass Amherst alumnus and president and co-founder of Flatworld Knowledge and Stephen Carson, external relations director for MIT OpenCourseWare. The event, which will be held in the UMass Campus Center, Room 163C, from 1:30 to 4 p.m., will be free and open to the public.

Sarah Hutton

Amherst

and two UMass library staffers

Sarah Hutton heads undergraduate teaching and learning services at UMass' W.E.B. Du Bois Library.