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November 13, 2020 by Gary Price

From the UK: “University Staff Urge Probe Into E-Book Pricing ‘Scandal'”

November 13, 2020 by Gary Price

UPDATE November 18 Response from Education Select Committee (via Campaign to Investigate the Academic eBook Market)

From the BBC:

More than 2,500 UK university staff have called for an investigation into the “scandal” of excessive pricing of academic e-books.

“Price rises are common, sudden and appear arbitrary” with some digital books increasing by 200%, they say in a letter to Education Committee MPs.

[Clip]

Organiser Johanna Anderson said some e-texts can cost 10 times print copies, with taxpayers and students the losers.

Publishers say the costs are due to the different formats and shared-use.

[Clip]

Librarians, lecturers, researchers and other representatives from almost every university in the UK have attached their names to the letter. It says:

  • A monopoly created by copyright law is the root cause of “these huge pricing differentials” and there is no justification for it
  • Earlier this year at least two well-known academic publishers raised the cost for a single-user e-book by 200% with no warning
  • Licences of e-books are often confusing and frequently restrictive
  • Publishers can withdraw e-book licences previously purchased by universities and enforce new ones.

Read the Complete Article (910 words)

Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), News

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About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@mediasourceinc.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. Before launching INFOdocket, Price and Shirl Kennedy were the founders and senior editors at ResourceShelf and DocuTicker for 10 years. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com, and is currently a contributing editor at Search Engine Land.

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