Why Libraries Are Losing Their E‑book Collections: The Hidden Cost of Licensing

The Van Metaphor

Imagine a van pulling up to a library, loading thousands of books, and driving away. For many libraries this isn’t a robbery—it’s the monthly reality of e‑book licensing. When a publisher decides a library no longer has "access" to a title, the library must remove it from its catalog.

From Ownership to Licensing

• Print books: When you buy a physical book you own it. You can read, lend, or resell it without the author or publisher’s permission.
• E‑books: Legally you never own the file. You purchase a license to read it under strict terms set by the publisher.
• The shift to digital collections means libraries now hold millions of licensed titles rather than owned books.

Scale of the Problem

• Penn State Libraries’ catalog: ~10 million items.
• Over 6 million are digital; fewer than 4 million are physical.
• Every month thousands to hundreds of thousands of e‑books must be removed because the license expires or the publisher revokes access.

The Publisher Oligopoly

1. Five major academic publishers dominate the market – creating an oligopoly.
2. Artificially high prices – licensing an e‑book often costs more than buying the print version.
3. Rapid price inflation – e‑book costs have risen faster than inflation for decades.
4. Non‑disclosure agreements – libraries cannot share pricing information, preventing market‑based pricing.
5. Bundling – libraries are forced to license large packages that include many titles they never need, similar to being required to buy an entire cereal aisle.

Who Funds the Knowledge?

• Universities pay salaries for scholars who write the manuscripts.
• Funding sources:
• Tuition fees (students’ money)
• Taxpayer dollars (public universities receive state funding)
• Grants (often publicly funded)
• After this public investment, the resulting research is handed to commercial publishers who then charge libraries exorbitant licensing fees.

Economic Unsustainability

• Penn State spent $13 million on e‑books and electronic resources in a single year.
• The university faced a $142 million budget deficit, highlighting the strain of current licensing models.

A Different Vision: Knowledge as a Public Good

• Open Access (OA): Scholarly articles and journals made freely available online without licensing restrictions.
• Example: The journal Lingua (published by Elsevier) was abandoned by its editors, who created the OA journal Glossa.
• Open Educational Resources (OER): Free, adaptable textbooks.
• Penn State’s Open Textbook Library offers 1,500+ free textbooks across disciplines.
• Students can avoid paying $75‑$150 per textbook; 65 % of students skip buying a textbook due to cost, and 31 % avoid courses for the same reason.
• Free Discoverable Resources: The library has identified 1.2 million openly available scholarly works that are not behind paywalls and remain accessible after graduation.

The Path Forward

• Treat knowledge created with public funds as a public good, like roads or clean water.
• Reduce reliance on the five‑publisher oligopoly by expanding OA and OER initiatives.
• Encourage libraries to curate and promote freely available resources, lowering costs for students and institutions alike.

Why It Matters

A democratic society requires an informed citizenry. When knowledge is locked behind costly licenses, access becomes unequal, undermining both education and the public’s right to information.

Knowledge funded by taxpayers and universities should be treated as a public good, not a private commodity; shifting to open access and open educational resources is essential to keep libraries affordable and democratic.