Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ There’s big problems with the market for academic ebooks

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

WonkHe has a couple of items on digital textbooks, this one and another that says the way we buy them needs to change. This article looks back at the Open Letter distributed by the #ebooksos campaign and argues that "that the market is anti-competitive and that it is not working well enough for educational institutions." There is a testy exchange in the comments worth a look. The other article "is published in association with Kortext," an eBook aggregation service providing "access to over a million ebooks from 4,500+ publishers", argues that "some of these books and resources become very expensive when every student needs their own copy" and that "perhaps it is time for other parts of the university (besides libraries) to take a responsibility for these costs." Once again the comments are worth a visit, particularly the unanswered question, "Is this a paid advertisement?

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Dec 10, 2024 10:19 p.m.

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