www.thegauntlet.ca / Fighting the rising cost of knowledge

"Knowledge is a commodity, and the price keeps going up. The Alberta government estimates that university students spend between $1,000–$1,700 on textbooks every year. According to the University of Alberta Students’ Union, textbook prices have increased at nearly three-times the rate of inflation since 1995. University of Calgary libraries and cultural resources will spend over $9 million this year to access over 77,000 online journals, thousands of e-books and multimedia resources — a price that U of C librarians say increases by about $500,000 each year. To fight rising prices, many are advocating for free and unrestricted access to textbooks and peer-reviewed research. The Alberta government set aside $2 million to fund projects supporting open textbooks at Alberta universities in April. Open textbooks are freely available on the Internet and licensed under creative commons. This allows anyone to edit and repurpose the work and students don’t have to pay a dollar to use them. A steering committee of students, faculty and university administrators was tasked with distributing the funds. U of C vice-provost libraries and cultural resources Tom Hickerson and U of C Students’ Union president Jarett Henry both sit on the committee ..."