CarmenBooks Inclusive Access
The CarmenBooks program offers digital copies of selected textbooks and access to publisher homework systems at significantly reduced pricing.
CarmenBooks was first piloted at The Ohio State University in 2017 and has operated at scale since Autumn of 2019. In that time, it has delivered over 800,000 titles and saved students more than $44 million dollars.
With CarmenBooks, students can:
- Save up to 80% off retail price for course materials
- Access publisher homework systems at a significant discount
- Access digital course materials directly through CarmenCanvas
- Retain access to digital course materials while students at Ohio State
As an instructor, providing a lower cost and easily accessible option for your course materials helps set students up for success from Day 1 of the semester.
How to Get Involved
For more information or to get started with CarmenBooks, contact carmenbooks@osu.edu. Be sure to include your course name and current textbook information (title, edition, publisher, etc.) A member of the University Libraries AERI team will work with you to see if the materials are available and if CarmenBooks is the right fit for your course.
Upcoming Adoption Periods
The deadlines to enroll your course in our upcoming terms are:
- Spring 2027: Friday, October 9
FAQ
We recommend mentioning in your syllabus that your course uses CarmenBooks and provide suggested language prior to each semester As students register for courses, those course sections participating in CarmenBooks will be indicated within the registration system. Additionally, any student who registers for a CarmenBooks course section will automatically receive an email with additional details, including opt out information.
Students who enroll in the course are automatically included and charged for their materials. Students do have the option to opt out before and until the second Friday of any class session. If they opt-out or drop the class before that date, they are issued a full refund. Otherwise they are charged for the materials. There are no partial refunds. It should be noted that because we strive only to include the most beneficial and affordable options for students, that our opt-out rate is well below 1%. While we understand the need to provide the option, in most cases there are no benefits – and, in fact, often financial and academic detriments – for students who opt out.
In most cases, no. All digital books and the majority of publisher homework systems are made available through a tool called RedShelf. In Carmen, this tool will appear to you and your students as CarmenBooks and will be accessible from the global navigation as well as the menu within your course. If you use a publisher tool that does not support launching directly from RedShelf, you may need to ensure an additional access point is available for your students – either in your course navigation or modules. Both CarmenBooks staff and publisher reps are available to help with this.
Instructors must commit and order their course materials for a given semester before its order period closes, typically about one week before students begin registering for classes for the semester. Any instructor who expresses interest in CarmenBooks by contacting carmenbooks@osu.edu will be provided more information and ordering instructions and deadlines. There is no long-term commitment required for CarmenBooks. In fact, participants are asked to reconfirm their orders each semester. This allows faculty to not only opt out of participation, but also change their instructional materials at any point for any reason.
When ordering your materials, you are able to assign multiple digital textbooks or combinations of textbooks, courseware and other materials to a course.