[COLLDV-L no. 1374 is reproduced below; the response follows it.]
From: "LACHLAN MCNAIR" <MCNAIR_at_VAX.LIBRARY.UTORONTO.CA>
A request for current information about budget allocation: at the
University of Toronto, while our university administration adds a
percentage to our budget for books and periodicals every year to
cover the cost of inflation, our purchasing power has not increased
for well over 20 years. Since the mid-80s, we have only been able to
place new subscriptions if we cancel existing ones of equal cost.
Even this has not been possible for the past three or four years,
since we have transferred half the annual inflationary increase in
our periodicals budget to our budget for electronic resources. This
has necessitated the cancellation of journals costing several hundred
thousand dollars without replacing them with new paper ones of equal
cost.
How are other libraries dividing their budgets among monographs,
serials and electronic resources?
Many thanks,
Lachlan McNair (416) 978 4254; fax (416) 978 8827
Collection Development Dept.
University of Toronto Library
130 St. George St.
Toronto, Ont. Canada M5S 1A5
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From: Anthony W Ferguson <ferguson_at_columbia.edu>
At Columbia we recently developed a 5-year library materials allocation
plan designed to systematically increase the amount of funds allocated
to digital materials. We plan to employ the following percents of
increase (dependant upon the University giving us the 8% increases that
are in their plan):
Binding 4%
Books/series 5%
Doc. Del. 5%
Periodicals 8.5%
Digital 22 to 29% annual increases
Currently, depending upon how you count it, we spend between 5 and 10%
of our funds on digital materials (digital budgets get 5% but we also
pay for cdroms out of book funds and e-journals out of periodicals
funds, etc.). Our goal is to increase that percent of total
expenditures figure by an additional 1% per year each and every year for
the next five year. This will add over one-million dollars by 2001-02.
This is a plan. It could speed up, it could slow down depending upon
our annual evaluation of needs and capabilities. It does force us to
weed periodicals annually. Tony
Anthony W. Ferguson
Associate University Librarian
Columbia University Libraries
Tel. 212-854-2270
Fax. 212-222-0331
Net: ferguson_at_Columbia.edu
Received on Wed May 14 1997 - 08:25:05 EDT