Tabling Experience

As students working the library and learning about the power of OERs, we both feel the responsibility to share our newfound knowledge with other students. We have a special perspective where we can see both sides of this knowledge imbalance: the ease of accessing OERs and the hesitancy/latency of embracing them. Students, generally speaking, want to spend as little money and do the least amount of work as possible. In some ways, talking about shifting to Open Education is intimidating because it sounds like a huge ordeal that requires sacrifice, not only for faculty, but also in some cases, for students as well. And to be honest, implementing a collective shift to Open is an ordeal, but as we have learned, a worthy ordeal.

So, taking our knowledge, research, and passion, we decided to hold a tabling event. We were definitely anxious, but worked with lots of people from around the library to get ready. We are very grateful for their support. To prepare, we printed out copies of our flyers and QR codes, created a “Path to free Textbooks” flow chart, and made lots of copies of small handouts that had QR codes on them. We also reached out to Heidi Brett, the Marketing and Public Relations Director at the library, who kindly got us candy and University of Utah swag that we handed out while tabling, which ended up being a life saver when it came to engaging students.

Having all the resources and support we needed, we reserved our tabling time, and started counting down the days.