This week, Alex Chalk MP (Cheltenham) will deliver the open letter to Chair of the Education Select Committee, Robert Halfon MP. Alex will also bring the letter to the attention of Ministers Michelle Donelan (Universities) and Gillian Keegan (Apprenticeships and Skills). On 3rd November 2020, Michelle Donelan MP, answered the following question submitted to Parliament by Colleen Fletcher MP,

“To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to make an assessment of the effect of academic publishing industry (a) pricing and (b) licensing practices for ebooks on (i) students and (ii) universities.”

The answer, which can be read here, displayed an extremely alarming absence of knowledge about one of the biggest issues facing universities today. It is of the upmost importance that we communicate the reality of the the situation to ministers.

Alex Chalk’s office has requested examples of ebook pricing problems to accompany the letter. With this in mind we have compiled a spreadsheet and are asking librarians to contribute evidence. The spreadsheet can be accessed here

We would like to thank everyone who has supported us thus far, particularly Alex Chalk MP, for his advice and championing of our campaign.

Below is a snippet of some of the examples we have collected. These are now the norm. The left-hand side column is the price of a hardcopy and the right-hand side, the ebook version of the same title

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