From: "June K. Schmidt" <JSchmidt_at_library.msstate.edu>
The Collection Development Librarians of Academic Libraries Discussion Group
Topic 3. As libraries continue to add subscriptions to electronic
resources, with ever-inflating and ongoing financial commitments that
require an ever larger percentage of collection development budgets, how
can libraries assure that adequate funds will be available for monographs?
Facilitator: Allan Scherlen
Recorder: Shelley Arlen
The group agreed that academic libraries are at a crisis point as they face
the complex challenge of balancing budgetary priorities. Electronic
resources are growing in number as well as cost. But the traditional
method of removing one journal title from the collection to add a new title
is becoming obsolete. The trend is for journal titles to be bundled in
multidisciplinary packages that are looked at as a whole and do not lend
themselves to title by title scrutiny.
From the user perspective, students are becoming overwhelmed with the
number of electronic library resources available to them. Many ignore them
all and just turn to Google. Are libraries buying too much electronic
product? Are we managing it well in light of the rising costs? And are
monographs suffering as a result? Some members of the group wonder if we
should still be putting so much energy into paper monographs. Should we be
moving more aggressively toward e-books? The answers often return to what
our faculty demand of their student users, what minimum e-resources are
expected to be available in academic libraries and the ebb and flow of
annual budgets. No one disagrees that the proportion of books to serials
(which includes subscription e-resources) is shifting away from monographs.
For those disciplines that are more monograph dependent, annual decreases
in the number of monographs purchased by the library is a serious concern.
Libraries are coming up with ways to deal with the growing fiscal
crisis. Granted, many of these measures may only provide short term and
limited relief. Some of these measures include:
1. Asking academic departments to split the cost of resources that
primarily serve their faculty and students or that they especially are
interested in acquiring;
2. Incorporating a library resource fee into the student tuition package,
similar to the physical education/recreation fee;
3. Strengthening cooperative resource sharing with neighboring institutions
and not acquiring duplication if the item is in the network.
4. Banding together with other libraries to more aggressively negotiate and
collectively bargain for better contracts on e-resources and supporting
only products and vendors with sustainable pricing models
5. Setting a minimum percentage or amount of budget that must be used for
monographs. This is intended to shield the monographic budget from being
eroded by e-resource /e-serial expansion and inflation.
6. Appealing to donors for financial support of e-resources (recognizing
the donor’s name on the e-resource – branding a resource with a donor’s name)
7. Using endowment monies to pay for e-resources and journals.
8. Prepaying multi-year subscriptions to get the best price.
9. Looking at user statistics and comparing use across disciplines to
re-allocate funds. Incorporate digital products that analyze usage in
order to have a more accurate use-driven formula for weeding and acquisition.
10. Becoming more involved in scholarly communication initiatives that,
besides other benefits, should eventually serve to help stabilize the
crisis – encouraging faculty retention of copyright, publication in open
access journals, and depositing their work in institutional repositories.
June Schmidt
Associate Dean for Technical Services
Mitchell Memorial Library
P.O. Box 5408
Mississippi State, MS 39762
662-325-7672
Received on Fri Feb 17 2006 - 02:31:40 EST