Libraries face a variety of ethical concerns in their operations. Librarians often have to contend with concerns of equitable access, material copyright, and patron privacy (Luo, 2016). In order to fulfill their mandates, both public and academic libraries need to provide high quality materials that allow for the education of learners, both inside and outside of academic institutions. The traditional textbook publishing model specifically faces difficulties in these ethical areas, and librarians and educators are exploring an alternative.
As Rubin and Rubin (2020) note, textbooks are the arena of publishing that experiences the least competition, with only three publishers making up around 70% of the educational publishing market. This oligopolistic position results in significant material costs both for students directly and for the libraries that may wish to purchase copies for general use. Much of this material requires the purchasing of a digital interactive materials license for each individual user, subverting the first sale doctrine and making those resources inaccessible to many learners due to the digital divide. This financial burden can increase the pressure on learners to resort to copyright infringement with photocopiers or to obtain illegal digital copies of textbooks. These electronic integrations also come with significant privacy risks, as the publishers record every mouse click and keypress to build a digital profile of each learner, analyzing and selling that data to their partners. Because these systems are proprietary, librarians cannot assess and inform users of the privacy violations they may face while using them.
While some publishers have introduced “inclusive access” models for digital materials to address some of the cost concerns, they fail to address the core equity problem by further exacerbating the digital divide, and do nothing to address privacy and copyright. Many schools and libraries are looking instead to a solution that does more to address those concerns: open educational resources (OER). The OER Commons lists over 700 high school and over 3000 undergrad textbooks among their catalog of over 50,000 resources (OER Commons, 2018). OER disrupts the traditional textbook market in several key ways, and the first is that the materials are often published directly by the authors. Materials are typically published under a Creative Commons license, which allows anyone to freely read or reproduce the work in its entirety. This greatly reduces concerns related to copyrights and piracy as well as cost. While most materials are provided digitally, the open license means that any user is free to produce printed copies at cost, often less than $15 for a 500-page textbook, making the printed versions more accessible to those with technology access barriers (Gatekeeper Press, n.d.). Materials shared under the OER model aren’t integrated with a publisher’s platform, resolving concerns about patron privacy. The open nature of these materials also makes it much faster to publish updates and corrections.
OER materials are not without their drawbacks, however. These resources require time and funds to produce, and without sales of the works to directly fund their creation, there’s no standard model for how the authors will be compensated for their efforts. The lack of centralized publishing authority can make it difficult for libraries to procure copies due to purchasing agreements with existing distributors. The majority of OER resources are provided digitally to minimize distribution cost, which has the possibility of magnifying the digital divide despite the option in many cases for print-at-cost. And they frequently do not come with the level of interactivity and integration with school coursework for automated grading of homework assignments and exams that a traditional publisher may provide. It can be difficult to evaluate these resources when they don’t come from known sources like university faculty. Evaluating the quality of individual works rather than relying on the prestige of the publisher is an open problem.
The traditional textbook publishing model fails to address three areas of ethical concern: equitable access, material copyright, and patron privacy. The adoption of OER faces some challenges, but their open nature gives them significant advantages in these areas. As more materials are published under the OER model, more universities and libraries are seeing them as viable replacements for or supplements to traditionally published textbooks. Librarians will need to evolve their understanding and application of ethical principles as technology continues to change the way that users interact with library materials.
References
Gatekeeper Press. (n.d.). How much does it cost to print a book? Gatekeeper Press. Retrieved February 27, 2023, from https://gatekeeperpress.com/printing-costs/
Luo, L. (2016). Ethical issues in reference: An in-depth view from the librarians’ perspective. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 55(3), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.5860/rusq.55n3.188
OER Commons. (2018, April 27). What are open educational resources? OER Commons Help Center. https://help.oercommons.org/support/solutions/articles/42000014835-what-are-open-educational-resources-
Rubin, R. E., & Rubin, R. G. (2020). Foundations of Library and Information Science (5th ed.). American Library Association.