The University of Southern Mississippi Libraries are excited to share the first Open Educational Resource textbook deposited into our Institutional Repository, Aquila.  “An Introduction to Police Operations and Methods: The Connection to Law and History”, is the result of Dr. R. Alan Thompson’s successful application to participate in the University of Southern Mississippi’s Open Textbook Initiative, supported by the Office of the Provost and the University Libraries. Dr. Thompson, an Associate Professor for the School of Criminal Justice, worked extensively this summer to draft a new textbook for use in his classes. Dr. Thompson met and corresponded frequently with his co-author, Anne Hudson, librarian for the College of Arts and Letters in order to incorporate USM library and other authoritative resources into his text related to the complex and evolving role of law enforcement. Anne will represent the pair at the upcoming Mississippi Library Association conference in Hattiesburg on October 18^th where she will discuss their successful faculty-librarian collaboration.