E-book Subscription Service to University of Colombo Students – Science Faculty Needs Your Help
As you all aware, our motherland is going through an unprecedented economic crisis that has devastated the country and funding to universities have been reduced drastically. Through all these hardships, the Science Faculty of UofC has done an outstanding job in maintaining a steady academic progress by conducting classes using a hybrid system of in-person and online, as applicable.
At present, the new academic year has started, and classes have resumed. While in-person classes have started, remote learning activities have continued due to the current economic situation and the shortage of essential goods and service in the country. The Faculty of Science is doing their best to maintain its remote learning platform to maintain academic progress of students. However, there is an acute shortage of required textbooks. The University is unable to purchase these textbooks due to the unavailability of funds to the library and the current shortage of dollars in the country.
The Science Faculty library of UofC has developed a plan to implement an e-book subscription service through ELSEVIER to bring the library and information services to the current standards and expand the student access to textbooks through their computer.
The library has already started working with ELSEVIER to implement the e-book service through ELSEVIER’s eBook on Science Direct Platform and selected a list of most critical books across all scientific disciplines to support the current degree programs. However, due to the current economic situation the funding to the library has been cut significantly.
After hearing this tragic situation and receiving a request from the Dean, Science faculty, CUFSAA worked with the ELSEVIER on behalf of the Science Library and was able to work out a more favorable cost structure for the e-book subscription service. With unanimous support from the executive committee, CUFSAA has agreed to pay for the invoice (US $ 4,376) directly to ELSEVIER so that the UofC students and staff can access this critical e-book collection as soon as possible. At present, ELSEVIER is working with the Science Library to implement the e-book subscription program.
The list of e-books and their prices are provided for our members to sponsor one or more e-books of their choice. The list includes a total of 29 e-books [consisted of 11 Chemistry books, 5 Mathematics books, 4 Plant science books, 3 Biochemistry books, 2 Physics books, 2 Environmental science books, and 2 Zoology books].
Again, we kindly ask for your generous support and purchase one or more e-books from the list. You can send the money to CUFSAA via the links given below.
Due to the urgent nature of the situation, we have borrowed funds from the CUFSAA general fund to pay for the subscription service. We kindly request your help in sponsoring one or more e-books of your choice Please click on the link below to choose book(s) you would like to contribute to offset the cost of purchase and let us know.
Sponsor an ebook
By fulfilling these E-book subscription service, we help our students continue their education and achieve a future success for themselves. At a time everyone in the country is struggling to make ends meet and our fellow students are faced with a tremendous challenges and huge uncertainty about their future, the most important thing we can do as past students of UofC is to show our support and give them hope.
Additional Support Documents
- Ebook Donation Ceremony – Oct. 25, 2022
- FOS Media News Article on Ebook Ceremony – Oct. 25, 2022
- List of Books – Please choose books to sponsor.
- Ebook subscription Proposal (Ebook Proposal List and Prices)
- Link to the previous newsletter article: https://mailchi.mp/864d8b4157bb/newslettervol0701