Why is knowledge getting so expensive Jeffrey Edmunds TEDxPSU

Why is knowledge getting so expensive? | Jeffrey Edmunds | TEDxPSU 🔗 **Source:** [Why is knowledge getting so expensive? | Jeffrey Edmunds | TEDxPSU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk) > [!note]+ Document Notes  ## Claude Analysis --- tags: [academic-publishing, open-access, library-science] author: Jeffrey Edmunds source: TEDx reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk date created: 2024-12-19 15:30 --- # 🏷️ Title: Why is knowledge getting so expensive? | Jeffrey Edmunds | TEDxPSU ## 🧰 Action Inbox - [H1] Advocate for open access publishing policies at institutions — 00:00 #policy - [H2] Evaluate textbook costs and explore OER alternatives — 14:12 #education - [H3] Challenge publisher licensing models through collective action — 07:45 #advocacy ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### 🔗 References - [TEDx Talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk) - [Penn State Libraries](https://libraries.psu.edu/) ## 📝 Summary - Academic librarian Jeffrey Edmunds explains how the shift from print books to ebooks has created an exploitative system where libraries license rather than own content - Publishers maintain an oligopoly over scholarly content, artificially inflating prices while universities fund the entire knowledge creation process - Open access publishing and open educational resources offer sustainable alternatives that treat knowledge as a public good rather than private commodity - Libraries lose tens of thousands of licensed ebooks monthly due to contract changes, creating instability in academic collections - The current system makes no economic sense as institutions pay twice - once to create knowledge, again to access it ## 📖 Main Content Edmunds uses the metaphor of strangers driving a van to a library and removing thousands of books to illustrate how ebook licensing works in practice. Unlike print books, which become the purchaser's property under copyright law, ebooks are only licensed for access. This distinction has profound implications for academic libraries. The scholarly publishing market is controlled by five major publishers who leverage their oligopoly through artificially high prices, non-disclosure clauses preventing price transparency, and forced bundling of unwanted content. Universities fund the entire knowledge creation process through tuition, taxpayer dollars, and grants, yet must pay publishers enormous sums to access their own research output. Successful alternatives exist, such as the journal Glossa, which editors created after leaving the expensive Lingua publication. Open educational resources address textbook costs that have risen over 1000% in 40 years, with 65% of Penn State students skipping textbook purchases due to cost. ## 🗒️ Notes #### ⏱️ [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=0) — [H1] The Van Metaphor: Library Content Removal - Key idea: Libraries lose access to thousands of ebooks monthly when licensing agreements change - Evidence: "5,432 books... they March into your Stacks pull those books off the shelves load them in the van and drive off" #### ⏱️ [02:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=135) — [H2] Copyright Law and Ownership Rights - Key idea: Print books become personal property while ebooks remain licensed content - Evidence: "when you buy a book that book becomes your personal property you own it you can do whatever you want with it" #### ⏱️ [03:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=225) — [H2] Publisher Strategy to Prevent Resale Market - Key idea: Publishers chose licensing over sales to prevent digital resale markets from destroying profits - Evidence: "they decided to not sell ebooks... you were merely buying a license to access that text" #### ⏱️ [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=300) — [H1] Scale of Digital Collections at Penn State - Key idea: Majority of library collections are now digital and subject to licensing restrictions - Evidence: "10 million items... more than 6 million are online... fewer than 4 million are actual physical books" #### ⏱️ [06:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=380) — [H2] Monthly Content Loss from Licensing - Key idea: Libraries regularly lose access to massive amounts of content due to licensing changes - Evidence: "Every month we're compelled to remove thousands tens of thousands and some months even hundreds of thousands of eBooks" #### ⏱️ [07:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=435) — [H1] Publisher Oligopoly in Scholarly Publishing - Key idea: Five publishers control the academic publishing marketplace and leverage this dominance - Evidence: "five Publishers that control the marketplace it's an oligopoly" #### ⏱️ [07:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=465) — [H2] Artificially High Ebook Costs - Key idea: Ebook licensing costs exceed print book purchase prices despite lower distribution costs - Evidence: "it costs more to license an ebook than it does to buy a print book outright" #### ⏱️ [08:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=510) — [H2] Non-Disclosure Clauses Prevent Price Transparency - Key idea: Publishers prevent libraries from comparing prices through contract restrictions - Evidence: "contracts that include non-disclosure clauses so that we can't discuss prices with our peer institutions" #### ⏱️ [09:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=555) — [H2] Forced Bundling of Unwanted Content - Key idea: Publishers require libraries to license thousands of unwanted ebooks in packages - Evidence: "compelled to license thousands and even tens of thousands of ebooks that we neither want nor need" #### ⏱️ [10:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=645) — [H1] Universities Fund Entire Knowledge Creation Process - Key idea: All scholarly labor from research to peer review occurs at universities with public funding - Evidence: "all of the intellectual labor... is done at universities the salaries of these people are paid for by universities" #### ⏱️ [12:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=720) — [H2] Three Sources of University Funding - Key idea: Tuition, taxpayer dollars, and grants all contribute public funds to knowledge creation - Evidence: "tuition monies... taxpayer dollars... Grant monies... have a strong publicly funded component" #### ⏱️ [12:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=765) — [H1] Penn State's $13 Million Annual Ebook Spending - Key idea: Libraries spend enormous sums licensing back publicly-funded research - Evidence: "Penn State spent over $13 million on ebooks and other electronic resources last year" #### ⏱️ [13:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=810) — [H2] Lingua to Glossa Journal Migration Success Story - Key idea: Academics successfully created free alternative to expensive commercial journal - Evidence: "annual subscription to lingua costs a library over $2,500... gloss is free" #### ⏱️ [14:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=880) — [H1] Textbook Cost Crisis Impact on Students - Key idea: Textbook prices have risen 1000% in 40 years, forcing students to skip purchases - Evidence: "over half of Penn State students 65% have elected not to buy a textbook because it was too expensive" #### ⏱️ [15:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=945) — [H2] Open Textbook Library Alternative - Key idea: Free, adaptable textbooks offer sustainable alternative to expensive commercial texts - Evidence: "over 1,500 textbooks in all disciplines that are freely available online" #### ⏱️ [17:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk&t=1020) — [H1] Libraries' Open Access Discovery Work - Key idea: Libraries actively identify and promote freely available resources not controlled by publishers - Evidence: "over 1,200,000... accessible now to anyone with internet access" ## 📚 References - [TEDxPSU Talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk) - [Open Textbook Library](https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/) - [Penn State Libraries](https://libraries.psu.edu/) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - Academic publishers have created an exploitative licensing system where universities pay twice - once to fund knowledge creation, then again to access their own research output through expensive ebook licenses rather than owned books - A five-publisher oligopoly controls scholarly publishing through artificially high prices, bundled sales of unwanted content, and non-disclosure agreements that prevent price transparency between institutions - Successful open access alternatives like the Glossa journal and open educational resources demonstrate viable models for treating knowledge as a public good rather than private commodity, saving institutions and students significant costs ## 📰 Newsletter Academic libraries are facing a crisis that affects every student and researcher. Jeffrey Edmunds from Penn State Libraries reveals how the shift to digital content has created an exploitative system where universities fund knowledge creation but must pay publishers enormous sums to access their own research. Unlike physical books you can own forever, ebooks are only licensed - meaning libraries can lose access to thousands of titles overnight when contracts change. Five major publishers control this market, artificially inflating prices while preventing institutions from comparing costs. The solution? Open access publishing and open educational resources that treat knowledge as a public good. Success stories like the Glossa journal and Penn State's collection of over 1.2 million free resources show sustainable alternatives exist. Resources: [Open Textbook Library](https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/), [Directory of Open Access Journals](https://doaj.org/), [Creative Commons](https://creativecommons.org/) ## ✅ Action Items #### DevRel - Developer advocacy: Create tools for open access publishing platforms, demos of sustainable knowledge sharing systems, metrics tracking open access adoption - Education: Workshops on open licensing models, curricula covering sustainable publishing economics - Developer experience: Improve documentation for open source publishing tools, API development for open repositories - Community management: Support forums for open access publishers, feedback collection on publishing platform UX #### Community - Maintainers: Support open source publishing platform development, governance templates for academic communities - Contributors: Onboarding programs for open access publishing contributions, first-issue programs for scholarly tools - Sponsors: Transparent funding models for open access initiatives, impact reports on knowledge accessibility - Ecosystem: Coordination between open publishing platforms, educational institutions, and libraries #### WordPress - Core: Publishing platform optimizations for academic content, performance improvements for large document repositories - Community: Meetup kits for open access advocacy, WordCamp sessions on sustainable publishing - Training: Lesson plans on WordPress for academic publishing, learning paths for library professionals - Documentation: DevHub resources for scholarly publishing plugins, style guides for academic themes ## 🧪 Hypotheses - Open access mandates from funding agencies will accelerate publisher business model changes within 5 years - Collective action by library consortiums can break publisher oligopolies through coordinated contract negotiations - Student outcomes improve measurably when textbook costs are eliminated through OER adoption - University budget allocations will shift from publisher licensing to open infrastructure funding as unsustainable costs become apparent ### 📊 Methodology - Study design to test hypothesis 1: Track publisher revenue and business model changes following major funder open access mandates like NIH, NSF policies - Data sources and analysis for hypothesis 2: Compare negotiation outcomes between individual vs consortium library contracts over 3-year period - Experiments to validate hypothesis 3: Controlled studies measuring completion rates, grades, and engagement in courses using OER vs traditional textbooks ### ❓ Questions - How can libraries collectively refuse exploitative licensing terms without losing access to essential research? - What governance models best support sustainable open access publishing that maintains quality peer review? - How might AI-assisted research change the economics of knowledge creation and distribution in academia? ### 🔮 Future Research - Analysis of publisher consolidation patterns and antitrust implications in academic markets - Economic modeling of university cost savings from complete transition to open access publishing - Investigation of quality metrics comparing open access vs traditional publishing in various disciplines ### 💡 Implications - Practice: Libraries need new collection development strategies prioritizing owned over licensed content - Policy: Universities should mandate open access publication for publicly-funded research and require OER consideration for courses - Security: Licensing agreements create single points of failure for academic access that owned resources avoid - Education: Faculty need training on open licensing, students need information literacy including understanding of publishing economics - Funding: Institutions should redirect publisher payments toward open infrastructure and publishing support services ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment Reading level estimate: 12th grade (college level appropriate for academic audience) #### 👀 Visual learners - Present: TEDx talk format with speaker slides, clear visual metaphor of van removing books - Improve: Infographics showing cost comparisons, flowcharts of publishing process, data visualizations of collection changes #### 🔊 Aural learners - Present: Full video presentation with clear narration, engaging speaking style - Improve: Podcast version, audio summary highlighting key statistics and quotes #### 🗣️ Verbal learners - Present: Strong use of metaphors (van scenario), clear definitions of licensing vs ownership, concrete examples - Improve: Glossary of publishing terms, analogies comparing to other industries, storytelling around successful transitions #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners - Present: Call to action for institutional policy change, concrete steps toward open access - Improve: Hands-on exercises comparing licensing costs, interactive tools for finding open alternatives, checklists for evaluating publisher contracts #### 🧠 Logical learners - Present: Clear timeline of publishing changes, step-by-step explanation of scholarly publishing process, concrete financial data - Improve: Decision trees for open access choices, detailed cost-benefit analyses, causal diagrams linking funding to access #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners - Present: Examples of collective action success (Lingua to Glossa), institutional coordination needs - Improve: Discussion guides for library staff, collaboration templates for multi-institution initiatives, moderated forums for sharing strategies #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners - Present: Individual reflection on personal textbook experiences, self-directed exploration of open resources - Improve: Worksheets calculating personal savings from OER, individual action planning templates, self-assessment tools #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners - Present: Ecosystem thinking about knowledge sharing, sustainability focus on long-term viability - Improve: Environmental impact comparisons of digital vs print, lifecycle analysis of publishing models, connections to commons-based resource management ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment #### Screen reader semantics - Present: Well-structured video with clear verbal description of visual elements, logical presentation flow - Improve: Full transcript with timestamp markers, detailed alt text for any slides or graphics shown #### Keyboard navigation - Present: Standard video player controls accessible via keyboard - Improve: Chapter markers for easy navigation to specific topics, keyboard shortcuts for common functions #### Contrast and readability - Present: TEDx stage setup typically meets contrast requirements, clear speaker visibility - Improve: High contrast transcript version, adjustable text size options for supplementary materials #### Text resizing and reflow - Present: Video scales appropri --- ## Full Transcript [00:00] [Music] [00:11] imagine you work in a library and one [00:14] day a van pulls up in front of your [00:16] building several people get out they [00:19] come into your library and they show you [00:20] a list and they say according to our [00:23] records you no longer have access to [00:26] these [00:27] 5,432 books they March into your Stacks [00:31] pull those books off the shelves load [00:33] them in the van and drive off what just [00:37] happened it looks like theft right [00:40] strangers coming unannounced into your [00:43] library and making off with a [00:45] significant chunk of your [00:48] collection my name is Jeff Edmonds and I [00:51] do work in a library I've been with the [00:54] Penn State libraries here well over half [00:56] my life and I can tell you that is [00:59] bizarre as far as that scenario sounds [01:02] it plays out in essence every single day [01:06] not only here at Penn State but at [01:09] libraries all over the country as the [01:12] result of the shift in our collections [01:15] from books to ebooks quick show of hands [01:20] how many of you have ever purchased a [01:22] book I hope everyone in the [01:24] audience now how many of you have ever [01:27] purchased an ebook [01:31] would it surprise you to learn that you [01:34] didn't purchase an ebook that it's [01:36] impossible to buy an [01:39] ebook to understand why we have to look [01:42] at us copyright law specifically the [01:45] part of the law that codifies what you [01:47] can and cannot do with the book that [01:50] you've purchased when you buy a book [01:53] that book becomes your personal property [01:55] you own it you can do whatever you want [01:58] with it you can even resell it and if [02:02] you do resell it you get all the money [02:06] the copyright holder be it the author or [02:09] the publisher has no claim on that [02:12] sale now imagine if that were true for [02:16] ebooks imagine if you could buy and [02:19] resell an ebook the same way you can buy [02:22] and resell a [02:24] printbook we all know that it's [02:26] infinitely easier to create copies of [02:30] and distribute copies of digital [02:34] objects like an ebook compared to a [02:37] print object like a physical [02:40] book so as the internet became a thing [02:44] Publishers realized they faced a [02:47] crisis if consumers could buy and resell [02:51] ebooks the same way we can buy and [02:53] resell print books their profit margins [02:57] would [02:58] evaporate and the publish in Industry [03:01] would [03:02] collapse so what did they do they made a [03:06] very astute decision they decided to not [03:11] sell [03:12] ebooks so when you clicked on buy it [03:16] what you were paying for was not that [03:19] ebook you do not own that ebook you were [03:22] merely buying a license to access that [03:26] text now if this distinction between [03:29] buying and owning outright a print book [03:32] versus paying for a license to access an [03:35] ebook seems minor to us as individual [03:40] consumers for libraries like the one [03:43] here at Penn State where I work that [03:46] collect millions of [03:48] ebooks this distinction has profound and [03:52] unsettling [03:54] implications let's start with the sense [03:56] of [03:57] scale this is the libraries [04:00] catalog we currently have about 10 [04:02] million items of those more than 6 [04:06] million are online they digital their [04:09] ebooks fewer than 4 million are actual [04:13] physical books in the [04:15] stacks so already the majority of our [04:18] collections are online they're ebooks [04:21] and because they're ebooks they're not [04:24] owned in the same way our print [04:25] collections are they're subject to [04:28] licensing and because they're merely [04:30] licensed they're subject to [04:33] removal every month we're compelled to [04:36] remove thousands tens of thousands and [04:39] some months even hundreds of thousands [04:41] of eBooks from our [04:44] catalog this is the van pulling up in [04:46] front of our building and making off [04:48] with a chunk of our [04:49] collection which begs the [04:52] question who's driving the [04:55] van if libraries don't own and control [04:59] their book collections who [05:02] does the simple answer is Publishers and [05:06] in the realm of scholarly publishing the [05:08] kind of publishing that concerns Us in [05:10] an environment like Penn State there are [05:14] five Publishers that control the [05:16] marketplace it's an [05:18] oligopoly and because they control the [05:21] marketplace they leverage their [05:24] advantage in several different [05:27] ways first [05:30] the cost of ebooks is artificially high [05:33] on average it costs more to license an [05:37] ebook than it does to buy a print book [05:41] outright second the cost of ebooks over [05:44] the past several decades has risen much [05:47] faster than the rate of [05:50] inflation third Publishers compel [05:54] libraries to sign contracts that include [05:57] non-disclosure clauses so that we can't [06:00] discuss prices with our peer [06:03] institutions Penn State for example [06:06] can't go to the University of Michigan [06:08] or ruter or UCLA and ask how much did [06:12] you pay for this package of ebooks we [06:14] have no way of determining what a fair [06:17] market Price [06:19] is [06:21] fourth Publishers bundle their content [06:24] together so that we're compelled to [06:26] license thousands and even tens of [06:29] thousands of ebooks that we neither want [06:33] nor [06:34] need imagine you're in the grocery store [06:37] and you go into the cereal aisle and you [06:39] pull your favorite cereal off the shelf [06:41] and put it in your cart and a clerk at [06:44] the end of the aisle says what are you [06:46] doing you say well I'm buying this [06:48] cereal and they say no no no you can't [06:50] do that store policy is that you have to [06:54] buy one of [06:55] each it's absurd right and yet that's [06:58] what publishers are doing to libraries [07:01] forcing us to end up with thousands of [07:03] things we neither want nor [07:07] need now this very uneven unfair [07:10] relationship becomes even more absurdist [07:14] when you consider where the knowledge [07:16] comes from that populates these [07:19] ebooks who's creating this [07:23] knowledge well in a [07:25] word we [07:27] are this is how SC Godly publishing [07:30] Works Scholars do [07:33] research they write [07:36] manuscripts those manuscripts are passed [07:38] to peers who then make comments the [07:41] comments are passed back to the authors [07:43] who then revise their manuscripts to [07:46] improve them and then ultimately an [07:49] editor or an editorial board decides [07:52] that this manuscript is worthy of [07:54] publication say as an ebook or as an [07:57] article in a scotle journal [08:01] now note that all of the intellectual [08:02] labor I just described from start to [08:06] finish is done at [08:09] universities the salaries of these [08:11] people are paid for by [08:15] universities and how are universities [08:18] funded well three ways of primary [08:21] importance first tuition monies so if [08:26] you're a student paying tuition your [08:29] money is being used in part to fund this [08:32] Enterprise of knowledge [08:35] creation second taxpayer dollars like [08:39] many [08:41] institutions Penn State is a public [08:43] university we depend on money from the [08:46] Commonwealth every year for our [08:48] operating budget so here you have [08:51] taxpayer dollars being used to fund this [08:54] Enterprise of knowledge [08:56] creation third Grant [09:00] monies while some grants can originate [09:03] from a private individual or private [09:06] Enterprise the vast majority have a [09:09] strong publicly funded component so [09:12] again public funds being used to fund [09:15] this Enterprise of knowledge [09:19] creation so we've funded this process [09:22] we've done the work we've created the [09:24] knowledge and then what do we do with [09:27] our manuscript [09:30] we hand it off to one of these [09:32] Publishers who then license it back to [09:34] us at enormous [09:36] cost the libraries here at Penn State [09:39] spent over $13 million on ebooks and [09:43] other electronic resources last [09:46] year given the Dire Straits in which [09:50] higher education finds itself we know [09:53] for example that Penn State just a [09:55] couple of years ago was facing $142 [09:58] million budget [10:00] defit this ecosystem makes no economic [10:03] sense it's a broken [10:07] system what could we do to correct [10:11] it well what if we thought of our [10:14] knowledge the knowledge that we [10:16] collectively fund and [10:17] create not as a private commodity to be [10:21] handed off to some third [10:24] party but is a public [10:26] good what if we thought of it in the [10:28] same light [10:30] that we think of good roads sound [10:33] Bridges a Dependable electrical grid [10:36] clean air clean [10:39] water what would that look like in [10:42] practice in this [10:45] context well first of all we could say [10:48] goodbye to these [10:50] Publishers they need us because we do [10:54] all the [10:55] work we don't need [10:57] them here's an [11:00] example this is a scolly journal known [11:02] as lingua it's published by elvir elvir [11:06] is the largest of those five [11:09] Publishers their profits last year [11:11] exceeded $2 [11:14] billion and annual subscription to [11:16] lingua costs a library over [11:21] $2,500 about a decade ago the editors of [11:25] lingua led by the executive editor a [11:28] Belgian linguist by the name of Johan [11:30] rurick decided to walk they said goodbye [11:34] to elsir because they were disgusted [11:37] with its pricing [11:39] models they left and they started their [11:43] own [11:45] journal [11:47] glossa same topic [11:49] Linguistics same [11:51] quality same [11:54] edites except unlike [11:57] linga gloss [12:00] is [12:01] free it's what we call Open [12:04] Access Open Access literature is [12:07] literature that's freely available [12:10] online and free of all or nearly all [12:13] licensing [12:15] restrictions if we expand that concept [12:18] of open access to something else that's [12:20] of vital importance to an environment [12:23] like Penn State textbooks we end up with [12:26] what are called open educational [12:28] resources or [12:31] OE we know that the cost of textbooks [12:34] has risen over a th% in the past 40 [12:37] years and the prices of textbooks [12:40] continue to rise at a rate three times [12:43] the rate of [12:44] inflation research we've done locally at [12:47] Penn State has shown us that over half [12:50] of Penn State students [12:53] 65% have elected not to buy a textbook [12:56] because it was too expensive and nearly [12:59] a third 31% have elected not to take a [13:05] course because the materials were too [13:08] expensive this is the open textbook [13:10] library in the libraries catalog it's a [13:13] collection of over [13:15] 1,500 textbooks in all [13:19] disciplines that are freely available [13:22] online they're free and they're freely [13:26] adaptable by that I mean that if a Penn [13:29] State Professor were to find a textbook [13:31] in this collection that was perfectly [13:33] suited to their course except for let's [13:36] say two [13:37] chapters they could remove those [13:40] chapters or rewrite them and upload [13:43] their version of the textbook to make it [13:46] freely available to their [13:48] students as a sustainable model this [13:51] sure beats the heck out of asking every [13:54] student in every section of those [13:56] courses to Shell out 75 or1 or [14:00] $150 for a textbook that they will [14:03] probably never use after that course [14:07] completes if we expand that notion to [14:10] its broadest possible application we end [14:12] up with [14:14] this for several years now the libraries [14:17] have been working [14:19] assiduously to identify to locate to [14:23] make discoverable resources that are not [14:26] controlled by Publishers that are freely [14:29] available online free to read these are [14:33] things that are not behind a pay wall [14:35] you don't need to authenticate as a Penn [14:37] State user to look at them they will [14:39] still be accessible to you after you [14:41] leave Penn State in fact they're [14:44] accessible now to anyone with internet [14:48] access the number currently stands at [14:50] over 1,200,000 and we expect to see this [14:54] number rise as we continue our work [14:59] as I said at the [15:01] beginning I've been with the libraries [15:03] for well over half my life over 35 years [15:07] and I've come to believe that libraries [15:10] are a fundamental pillar of [15:13] democracy democracy demands an informed [15:18] citizenry and informed citizens [15:22] must have free and Equitable and open [15:26] access to information and to knowledge [15:29] especially the knowledge that we've [15:31] collectively funded and [15:33] created knowledge is not a private [15:37] commodity to be handed off to some third [15:41] party knowledge is a public [15:44] good and it must be treated as [15:47] such thank you [15:50] [Applause]  ## 📺 Video ![](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk) --- # 📄 Full Transcript *Auto-generated from YouTube captions · timestamps roughly every 30 seconds · [watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PygUK16aQgk)* **[00:00]** [Music] imagine you work in a library and one day a van pulls up in front of your building several people get out they come into your library and they show you a list and they say according to our records you no longer have access to these 5,432 books they March into your Stacks **[00:31]** pull those books off the shelves load them in the van and drive off what just happened it looks like theft right strangers coming unannounced into your library and making off with a significant chunk of your collection my name is Jeff Edmonds and I do work in a library I've been with the Penn State libraries here well over half my life and I can tell you that is bizarre as far as that scenario sounds **[01:02]** it plays out in essence every single day not only here at Penn State but at libraries all over the country as the result of the shift in our collections from books to ebooks quick show of hands how many of you have ever purchased a book I hope everyone in the audience now how many of you have ever purchased an ebook would it surprise you to learn that you **[01:34]** didn't purchase an ebook that it's impossible to buy an ebook to understand why we have to look at us copyright law specifically the part of the law that codifies what you can and cannot do with the book that you've purchased when you buy a book that book becomes your personal property you own it you can do whatever you want with it you can even resell it and if you do resell it you get all the money **[02:06]** the copyright holder be it the author or the publisher has no claim on that sale now imagine if that were true for ebooks imagine if you could buy and resell an ebook the same way you can buy and resell a printbook we all know that it's infinitely easier to create copies of and distribute copies of digital objects like an ebook compared to a **[02:37]** print object like a physical book so as the internet became a thing Publishers realized they faced a crisis if consumers could buy and resell ebooks the same way we can buy and resell print books their profit margins would evaporate and the publish in Industry would collapse so what did they do they made a very astute decision they decided to not **[03:11]** sell ebooks so when you clicked on buy it what you were paying for was not that ebook you do not own that ebook you were merely buying a license to access that text now if this distinction between buying and owning outright a print book versus paying for a license to access an ebook seems minor to us as individual consumers for libraries like the one **[03:43]** here at Penn State where I work that collect millions of ebooks this distinction has profound and unsettling implications let's start with the sense of scale this is the libraries catalog we currently have about 10 million items of those more than 6 million are online they digital their ebooks fewer than 4 million are actual physical books in the **[04:15]** stacks so already the majority of our collections are online they're ebooks and because they're ebooks they're not owned in the same way our print collections are they're subject to licensing and because they're merely licensed they're subject to removal every month we're compelled to remove thousands tens of thousands and some months even hundreds of thousands of eBooks from our catalog this is the van pulling up in **[04:46]** front of our building and making off with a chunk of our collection which begs the question who's driving the van if libraries don't own and control their book collections who does the simple answer is Publishers and in the realm of scholarly publishing the kind of publishing that concerns Us in an environment like Penn State there are five Publishers that control the marketplace it's an **[05:18]** oligopoly and because they control the marketplace they leverage their advantage in several different ways first the cost of ebooks is artificially high on average it costs more to license an ebook than it does to buy a print book outright second the cost of ebooks over the past several decades has risen much faster than the rate of **[05:50]** inflation third Publishers compel libraries to sign contracts that include non-disclosure clauses so that we can't discuss prices with our peer institutions Penn State for example can't go to the University of Michigan or ruter or UCLA and ask how much did you pay for this package of ebooks we have no way of determining what a fair market Price is **[06:21]** fourth Publishers bundle their content together so that we're compelled to license thousands and even tens of thousands of ebooks that we neither want nor need imagine you're in the grocery store and you go into the cereal aisle and you pull your favorite cereal off the shelf and put it in your cart and a clerk at the end of the aisle says what are you doing you say well I'm buying this cereal and they say no no no you can't do that store policy is that you have to **[06:54]** buy one of each it's absurd right and yet that's what publishers are doing to libraries forcing us to end up with thousands of things we neither want nor need now this very uneven unfair relationship becomes even more absurdist when you consider where the knowledge comes from that populates these ebooks who's creating this knowledge well in a **[07:25]** word we are this is how SC Godly publishing Works Scholars do research they write manuscripts those manuscripts are passed to peers who then make comments the comments are passed back to the authors who then revise their manuscripts to improve them and then ultimately an editor or an editorial board decides that this manuscript is worthy of publication say as an ebook or as an **[07:57]** article in a scotle journal now note that all of the intellectual labor I just described from start to finish is done at universities the salaries of these people are paid for by universities and how are universities funded well three ways of primary importance first tuition monies so if you're a student paying tuition your **[08:29]** money is being used in part to fund this Enterprise of knowledge creation second taxpayer dollars like many institutions Penn State is a public university we depend on money from the Commonwealth every year for our operating budget so here you have taxpayer dollars being used to fund this Enterprise of knowledge creation third Grant **[09:00]** monies while some grants can originate from a private individual or private Enterprise the vast majority have a strong publicly funded component so again public funds being used to fund this Enterprise of knowledge creation so we've funded this process we've done the work we've created the knowledge and then what do we do with our manuscript we hand it off to one of these **[09:32]** Publishers who then license it back to us at enormous cost the libraries here at Penn State spent over $13 million on ebooks and other electronic resources last year given the Dire Straits in which higher education finds itself we know for example that Penn State just a couple of years ago was facing $142 million budget defit this ecosystem makes no economic **[10:03]** sense it's a broken system what could we do to correct it well what if we thought of our knowledge the knowledge that we collectively fund and create not as a private commodity to be handed off to some third party but is a public good what if we thought of it in the same light that we think of good roads sound **[10:33]** Bridges a Dependable electrical grid clean air clean water what would that look like in practice in this context well first of all we could say goodbye to these Publishers they need us because we do all the work we don't need them here's an example this is a scolly journal known as lingua it's published by elvir elvir **[11:06]** is the largest of those five Publishers their profits last year exceeded $2 billion and annual subscription to lingua costs a library over $2,500 about a decade ago the editors of lingua led by the executive editor a Belgian linguist by the name of Johan rurick decided to walk they said goodbye to elsir because they were disgusted **[11:37]** with its pricing models they left and they started their own journal glossa same topic Linguistics same quality same edites except unlike linga gloss is free it's what we call Open Access Open Access literature is **[12:07]** literature that's freely available online and free of all or nearly all licensing restrictions if we expand that concept of open access to something else that's of vital importance to an environment like Penn State textbooks we end up with what are called open educational resources or OE we know that the cost of textbooks has risen over a th% in the past 40 **[12:37]** years and the prices of textbooks continue to rise at a rate three times the rate of inflation research we've done locally at Penn State has shown us that over half of Penn State students 65% have elected not to buy a textbook because it was too expensive and nearly a third 31% have elected not to take a course because the materials were too **[13:08]** expensive this is the open textbook library in the libraries catalog it's a collection of over 1,500 textbooks in all disciplines that are freely available online they're free and they're freely adaptable by that I mean that if a Penn State Professor were to find a textbook in this collection that was perfectly suited to their course except for let's say two chapters they could remove those **[13:40]** chapters or rewrite them and upload their version of the textbook to make it freely available to their students as a sustainable model this sure beats the heck out of asking every student in every section of those courses to Shell out 75 or1 or $150 for a textbook that they will probably never use after that course completes if we expand that notion to its broadest possible application we end **[14:12]** up with this for several years now the libraries have been working assiduously to identify to locate to make discoverable resources that are not controlled by Publishers that are freely available online free to read these are things that are not behind a pay wall you don't need to authenticate as a Penn State user to look at them they will still be accessible to you after you leave Penn State in fact they're **[14:44]** accessible now to anyone with internet access the number currently stands at over 1,200,000 and we expect to see this number rise as we continue our work as I said at the beginning I've been with the libraries for well over half my life over 35 years and I've come to believe that libraries are a fundamental pillar of democracy democracy demands an informed **[15:18]** citizenry and informed citizens must have free and Equitable and open access to information and to knowledge especially the knowledge that we've collectively funded and created knowledge is not a private commodity to be handed off to some third party knowledge is a public good and it must be treated as such thank you **[15:50]** [Applause]