Buying textbooks can be very expensive and is one of the most dreaded parts of college for most students, but for a few years now, Loyola University has been combating this with a service called course reservations.

With recent budget concerns, many students have been worried that this program will be cut, but Deborah Poole, dean of libraries is not being discontinued because they want to help students.

“Our initiative is recognizing that this process reduces the cost of college for so many students,” Poole said.

Course reservations is a service provided to the professors that allows them to put class materials on reservation for their students to use. If a professor plans to only use a few chapters out of a book, he or she can put the book on reserve in the library or through an online Blackboard link instead of having students buy a $200 textbook.

Laurie Phillips, associate dean for technical services, said Loyola’s library staff works closely with the professors to ensure that all the right materials are being reserved.

“We send out emails to the professors to remind them to put their textbooks on reserve and also to remind them that the library can buy their textbooks so just in case they want to put a copy on reserve but they don’t have it, we’ll buy it,” Phillips said.

Phillips said that ever since making the big push for course reservations, the program has been steadily expanding over the past few school years. This program has become more popular not just among professors but students as well. In the fall semester of 2014, 106 professors used the course reservation program, 477 items were placed on reserve and 3,328 checkouts were made. In the spring semester of 2015, 106 professors reserved a total of 516 items, which led to a checkout total of 3,031.

Bethany Wright, studio art freshman, said the program has helped her through classes for when her book orders hadn’t come in on time

“Honestly, I survived the first few weeks of my math class because of the reservation program. So while I waited for my books I didn’t have to worry about falling behind or rely on my classmates,” Wright said.

This program is not only for books. It can also be utilized for articles, paper musical scores, literary excerpts and other course-unique things that the professors see fit.

“A lot of time goes into cataloging these items and double checking with professors. Even if we had to make budget cuts within the library, this program will remain in the end,” Phillips said.