Congratulations to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries on being recognized in the Clarivate Library Innovation Awards for Project Fox, an initiative focused on expanding access to lower-cost and no-cost course materials.
At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the Libraries play an active role in supporting teaching, learning, and student success across campus. Project Fox builds on that role by helping faculty and library teams work together to identify more affordable course materials before students are asked to buy them.
Project Fox and the University of Nebraska were selected as winners in the inaugural Clarivate Library Innovation Awards and announced at ELUNA 2026.
Their initiative shows how libraries can play a more active role in course materials affordability not just by responding to individual requests, but by building workflows that identify lower-cost and no-cost options at scale.
Turning reading lists into affordability opportunities
The challenge was familiar: students need affordable access to required course materials, but identifying lower-cost or no-cost alternatives across many courses can be difficult to do manually.
Project Fox set out to create a more scalable approach.
Leganto is Clarivate’s course materials solution, helping libraries manage course reading lists, connect library resources to learning workflows, and make library resources more visible to students and instructors within their courses.
Using Leganto reading list management solution as the foundation, the UNL Libraries team built a workflow around faculty-provided syllabi and reading lists. Those lists became the starting point for identifying course materials, checking what the library already had access to, and finding opportunities to connect students with more affordable options.
Alma supported the workflow through overlap analysis, helping the team review existing electronic resources already available through the library. Rialto added another layer by helping evaluate unlimited-access eResource options where available.
A measurable affordability impact
The early findings were powerful. In the pilot, UNL Libraries found that 89% of courses reviewed had an opportunity to move to a lower-cost option, while only 11% were already using the lowest-cost option. Results are based on UNL Libraries’ pilot findings and may not be representative of outcomes at other institutions.
Faculty also saw the value directly.
“The Course Materials Pilot Program has been an incredible resource,” said instructor Amy Guevara. “Students have immediate access to a large pool of materials — without having to purchase anything.”
Leganto value in action
For students, this can mean more immediate access to the materials they need. For faculty, it creates a clearer path to affordable course content. For the library, it reinforces a growing role as a strategic campus partner in affordability, access, and student success.
This is where Leganto’s value becomes especially clear. It helps libraries connect reading list workflows with broader institutional goals — from lowering barriers for students to showing the library’s impact in a way that can be shared across campus.
The full conversation with Melissa Gomis from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries explores this work in more detail, including how Leganto can help academic libraries strengthen their role in teaching, learning, and affordability.
Watch the webinar: https://exlibrisgroup.com/blog/unlocking-the-academic-librarys-full-impact-how-leganto-helps-libraries-lead/
“Implementing Rialto was really key to the success of this project.”
— Andy Pederson, Systems Librarian, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Rialto library marketplace platform played a critical role in enabling the University of Nebraska–Lincoln to scale the identification and acquisition of affordable course materials as part of Project Fox.
“The bulk upload feature was the biggest one — otherwise we would have had to do manual input.”
— Melissa Gomis, Chair of Collections Strategy & Open Scholarship
By leveraging Rialto’s bulk upload capabilities, the team was able to ingest large volumes of reading list data from spreadsheets, eliminating the need for manual entry and significantly accelerating workflows.
Rialto also streamlined discovery by automatically matching across multiple ISBNs and surfacing all available formats of a title, including unlimited access e‑books—addressing a key challenge in finding the most cost-effective options. Additionally, its filtering, list management, and categorisation features allowed the team to efficiently prioritise materials and integrate acquisition workflows across systems, making Rialto a central driver of automation and scalability in the project.
Congratulations to Andrew Pederson, Melissa Gomis, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries team on this well-deserved recognition.
