We’ve known since last year that libraries present a unique opportunity for e-book publishers to be dicks, especially about prices. And the onset of COVID-19 has, apparently, made it worse.
I first saw this article from the Guardian about a month or so ago, possibly more because time as a construct is ripping itself apart faster and faster each day. Anyway, it talks about how British academic libraries are having to pay up to 500% more than print book prices for electronic copies of textbooks, which are of course in high demand since the pandemic erupted and distance learning has become the norm.
That is 500% extortion, taking advantage of urgent needs and the artificial scarcity that drives them in exactly the time when budgets are in tatters and students’ personal economic situations are more perilous than ever. Because of this, more students are dependent on library materials, and if libraries don’t have the budget to keep up with the ri-fucking-diculous price hikes, they can’t help, thus making students choose between paying what they can’t afford, taking on yet more student debt, or just gambling with their grades by going without materials that are too expensive.
Nobody should have to make that choice.
This is happening in part due to the UK’s copyright laws, which stipulate that university libraries have to buy books that are designated for academic use only. Which means publishers who sell academic books have a captive buying audience and no incentive to make things more affordable because where else are academic libraries going to go?
Another part of the problem is that the pricing of academic ebooks is based on a model of constant repayment across the world. Most electronic academic materials are bought in subscription bundles, which theoretically gives the library more value per piece of material, but also means your library has to repay for the material access every year, rather than just once for a physical book that may not need replacing for half a decade or more, and publishers can yank access whenever they feel like it because the material is still technically owned by them. Plus, digital catalogues of academic material are not nearly as extensive as they need to be, no matter how many publishers you buy from, which means the library is paying higher fees for a fraction of the actual usefulness.
So it’s not a problem unique to the UK, or even just academic libraries. Any library that lends out ebooks has this problem, in that publishers charge more for library-specific copies of ebooks to start with for no supported reason other than to squeeze more money from the people who have no choice but to work with them.
Fortunately, academics across the UK have banded together and are demanding a governmental investigation into this latest predatory practice. You can sign their letter here, whether or not you’re British or in any sort of academic environment.
Do it so we can all read on.