Librarians vs Students: The Digital Access Dispute
With the advent of COVID-19 restrictions, student’s access to online library resources has become more important than ever. Yet, despite the librarian’s best efforts, all too often students are finding that their university library ‘fail to offer electronic versions of many books, seen as critical to degree courses’ (Bothwell, 2021). So with the continuation of online learning, we must ask the questions: who is at fault for this lack of accessibility and how do we solve it?
The University’s Issue
Student’s lack of access to library resources has become an all too common problem over the last year. Complaints range from short loan dates, a limited number of downloads allowed or a lack of device storage to download the text (Reidy, 2021). One student asks, ‘how are we supposed to produce dissertations without any access to invaluable resources?’ (Glover-Watts, 2021).
But to think that librarians are not doing all that they can to solve the student’s issues would be untrue. One librarian reports that they are ‘having sleepless nights worrying’ about students being unable to access resources, and there has even been a formal petition launched to investigate the publishing industry ‘over its pricing and licensing practices regarding eBooks’ (Fazackerley, 2021; Academic Book Investigation, 2021). Given that librarians seem to be doing all they can to resolve this lack of accessibility, perhaps we should not be framing this as a students vs librarians issue, but a universities vs publishers one.
Predatory Publishers
Due to UK copyright law, university libraries are required to purchase eBooks that have been specifically licensed for university use. This has meant that during the pandemic, some publishers have taken advantage of the situation for profits. Whilst digital copies of academic textbooks can normally cost more than 5 times as much as print copies, the pandemic has seen at least ‘two well-known academic publishers’ raise the cost of one eBook by 200% (Academic Book Investigation, 2021). Indeed, Routledge charges £36.99 for the print version of their ‘Curriculum for Young Children’ package, but £480 for the eBook (Fazackerley, 2021). In fact, prices for digital copies have increased so much during the pandemic that librarians have accused publishers of ‘manipulating the market and price gouging from COVID’ (Fazackerley, 2021).
So, although Routledge believe that their ‘e-text-books’ are ‘fairly and competitively priced for the library market,’ it is obvious that this is not a student vs librarian battle, but one that is the fault of certain publishers (Fazackerley, 2021).
Solutions
As this crisis in ongoing, it is evident that universities and publishers need to come together to create a solution. With publishers such as Cambridge University Press providing free online access to their texts during the pandemic and Wiley providing free access to certain journals, it is evident that accessibility can be improved. Open-access can temporarily be put in place for texts, and publishers can offer texts for a discounted price to libraries. Even allowing more than one student to loan an eBook at one time would be of great help to students. With these proposed solutions therefore, this begs the question, when will it be that certain predatory Publishers put their conscience before profits?
References
Academic Book Investigation. (2021) Campaign To Investigate The Academic Ebook Market. Available at: Campaign to investigate the academic ebook market — Academic publishing practices are making ebooks unaffordable, unsustainable and inaccessible to university libraries. We call for urgent regulation of the market (academicebookinvestigation.org) (Accessed 11 February 2021).
Bothwell, E. (2020) ‘Libraries ‘will cancel journal subscriptions’ unless prices drop’, Times Higher Education Supplement, 13 August. Available at: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/libraries-will-cancel-journal-subscriptions-unless-prices-drop (Accessed 28 January 2021)
Fazackerley, A. (2021) ‘”Price gouging from Covid”: Student eBooks Costing Up To 500% More Than In Print’, The Guardian, 29 January. Available at: ‘Price gouging from Covid’: student ebooks costing up to 500% more than in print | Higher education | The Guardian (Accessed 11 February 2021).
Glover-Watts, K. (2021) ‘Why is Edinburgh Uni Allowed to Slack in Teaching but We’re not Allowed to as Students?’, The Tab. Available at: https://thetab.com/uk/edinburgh/2021/01/12/students-arent-getting-quality-teaching-69111 (Accessed 11 February 2021).
Reidy, T. (2021) ‘”It’s Our Job To Support Students”: How To Study Without Library Access At University’, The Guardian, 23 January. Available at: ‘It’s our job to support students’: how to study without library access at university | Students | The Guardian (Accessed 11 February 2021).
