The COVID-19 pandemic will leave a changed world in its wake. But will the changes continue post-pandemic? How many of the problems faced in the past year weren’t new, and only exacerbated due to underlying issues? How many will fix those flawed structures to soften the blow of future crises?

Greg Eow, President of the Center for Research Libraries, hopes that higher education will rise to the challenge. “Crises have beginnings and ends; COVID-19 will have a beginning and an end. But when I look at the crisis in the Humanities, and I look at the crisis in ‘scholcom,’ I’m thinking, those are not looking like crisis as much as they’re looking like condition. There’s something going on there where the institutions need to change.”

In this final episode, Emily Farrell, Library Partnerships and Sales Lead at the MIT Press, digs into how the pandemic has affected libraries—shrinking budgets, increased demand for digital options—and therefore, Direct to Open’s rollout plan. Greg unpacks current conditions that threaten the scholarly ecosystem, and how stronger bonds between the university library, press, and faculty could be the solution.