More than $3,000 worth of textbooks have been placed on two-hour reserve at Green Library this quarter as the result of an ASSU initiative funded by the Office of the Provost. The effort, which seeks to provide a low-cost alternative to buying textbooks for popular courses, has more than doubled the number of high-priced texts on reserve for winter quarter classes — from 26 to 55, according to ASSU Senator Vang Kou Khang ‘08.

“These numbers may not be much, but it is one step closer to helping alleviate the cost of living for students,” Khang said in an email to The Daily.

The staff of the Stanford Bookstore and Green Library worked with professors in several departments to compile the list of texts to purchase, which included such venerable standbys as Prof. John Taylor’s introductory economics text and first-year Spanish and French books. More esoteric fare, including “Art and Experience in Classical Greece” and “Introduction to Spectroscopy,” also won shelf space.

Khang and fellow senators Sarah Golabek-Goldman ‘10 and Luukas Ilves ‘09, who headed the initiative, encouraged students to provide recommendations for future textbook purchases on the ASSU Web site at assu.stanford.edu.