The price of textbooks and the consequent burden on students is a hot topic in higher education, leading both to initiatives to expand the usage of Open Educational Resources (OERs – roughly open-access textbooks) and to experiments in different pricing models by which publishers offer e-textbooks.  One commonly discussed model is a ‘subscription’ or ‘site license’ to attain ‘inclusive access’ by charging a single price to an institution for access to all the students in a given course.  This usually leads to lower cost-per-student and (and this is what academics like) much broader access to textbooks by students where now many choose not to buy textbooks they find too expensive.

So now a publisher is facing blowback from textbook authors:

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/05/16/textbook-authors-sue-cengage-over-subscription-model#.Wvx3HR7yzeA.twitter

Without knowing anywhere near enough facts of the case, I think it’s permitted to wonder whether a lower price guaranteed for a larger number of students might not in some cases bring equal revenue to publishers and authors over a current situation where non-purchase, reliance on second-hand texts, and the like already brings less than the notional maximum revenue that would come from 100% of students paying retail price.

My view is that libraries will be increasingly pressed to engage in this space, whatever models emerge as preferable.

Jim O’Donnell

Arizona State University