The price of education is set to grow steeper with the Government implementing e-commerce taxes on educational institutions as from 1 April 2014.

This means all library services in South Africa will feel the impact of the newly-proposed 14 percent tax and will struggle to buy academic e-resources.

Libraries play an integral role in learning, teaching and research because the majority of academic e-journals, e-books and bibliographic databases (including video and image databases) are published in Europe and North America and are sourced by local libraries.

This includes some South African research produced by academics from South African universities that are published in international databases. Research and teaching are dependent on access to the latest published research results in these journals. The reality is that from 1 April 2014, all educational institutions will feel this loss and struggle to buy such journals.

Libraries are already being forced to cut back on their purchases of e-books and other electronic material. This could mean that, on top of having access to fewer publications, South African researchers, lecturers and especially disadvantaged students will not have access to some of the research produced by South African academics and researchers, which is usually financed from the national budget.

According to Dr Buhle Mbamabo-Thata, who is based at the University of South Africa (UNISA) and who chairs the committee for higher education, e-commerce tax will directly affect students because should the libraries not meet student needs, it will hinder their education as well as negatively impact global rankings of South African universities.

Lucile Webster, chairperson of the National Council for Library and Information Services (NCLIS), said: “Since South Africa’s democratic transition in 1994, the right to education and access to information for knowledge became a priority to right the wrongs of the past.

“Studies have shown that South African pupils lag far behind their peers in Africa and in the world. The introduction of VAT on electronic resources will negate the positive developments that were made these last few years and have an undesirable impact on the services offered by all kinds of libraries and on education in general.”

It is for these reasons that the higher education library fraternity is calling for a rethink on the implementation of the e-commerce tax.

The Department of Higher Education and Training and the Department of Science and Technology need to act immediately by holding talks with the Treasury and educational institutions to remedy the situation of diminishing library resources and by placing a moratorium on the introduction of VAT.

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Waheeda Peters