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Budget Cuts and UM Libraries' Collections
Serial Cancellations Implemented for FY04
September 11, 2003
With the rest of the campus, the University of Maryland Libraries are being forced to make difficult decisions in a period of diminished resources (see http://www.provost.umd.edu/Budget/). As we begin the third consecutive fiscal year with budget cuts combined with rapid inflation in journals and electronic resources, the Libraries are reducing their subscription expenditures by 5%.
These cuts are required to balance the FY04 budget. While cuts at this level are substantial, inflation for 2004 journals is projected to be 12%. The Libraries have received special one-time funding from the Provost to assist in protecting core collections. This is an impressive statement of the Provost's commitment to the Libraries and expression of the campus' support for the collections and their contributions to the campus community. Without this extra funding, far deeper cuts would be required.
The work of identifying titles for cancellation largely began in late August because of the many delays in announcing the FY04 funding levels. Library faculty were forced to work quickly in August to identify cancellations to meet the goal of reducing spending on print serials by 5%. These decisions had to be made before the beginning of the Fall semester as libraries typically renew all journal subscriptions by late August to ensure uninterrupted receipt of new issues.
The recent serial review has left the Libraries well prepared to identify quickly the titles that could be eliminated with the least impact to the campus community. The serial review included journals, electronic resources, and standing orders for monographic titles. The Libraries are reducing its collection of all three categories to some extent by cancellations. The lists of low priority items identified in the serial review were the source of cancelled titles.
As titles are processed for cancellation, they have been added to the list on this site. In the case of electronic resources, cancellation is not effective immediately in many instances as access may have been already purchased for some portion of the coming year. For such electronic resources, the Libraries will simply forgo renewal when that date arrives and access will only be lost thereafter. Such dates are noted on the list.
How did we get here?
The painful process of reducing subscriptions is required by the converging pressures of past budget reductions and unrelenting inflationary pressures. In FY02 the materials budget was reduced by 2%, in FY03 the budget was reduced by 5%, and already in FY04 the budget has been reduced further by 2.5%.
For two years the Libraries coped with these reductions by halting all new acquisitions of print and electronic subscriptions and in FY03 by also reducing discretionary purchases of monographs by 50%. Meanwhile during each of those two years, the existing serial commitments inflated by more than 8% each year (10% per year for electronic resources). While monograph buying has been set back, until now the collections probably have looked much as usual to their users.
Looking toward FY04, the situation is more bleak. Published projections of journal inflation are predicting 12% inflation for FY04 due to the weakening dollar and other industry factors. Book funds cannot be raided indefinitely to prop up serial purchases for many reasons. Monographic purchases add value to collections as much as serials. Even if serials were allowed to consume monographic funds, serials comprise nearly 70% of the materials budget while monographs consume less than 20%. If the Libraries relied only on redirecting monograph funds to maintaining serials, in less than three years the Libraries would be acquiring no monographs at all.
What are the Libraries doing to deal with this situation besides cancelling titles?
The budget problems faced by the Libraries are driven in part by economic forces that have been a cause for concern for many years. Users of the McKeldin Periodicals Reading Room have probably noticed several displays in recent years highlighting the problems of rapid journal inflation. The Libraries are participating in national initiatives aimed at moderating journal inflation. One example of this type of work is the the SPARC Initiative which seeks to increase broad and cost-effective access to peer-reviewed scholarship. The Libraries are also active with ICOLC, an international group that works with publishers of electronic resources. These activities require the support of the campus as typically only the cancellation of low value products successfully signals to publishers that we are serious in our demands for reasonable pricing for scholarly communication.
The Libraries have also been actively monitoring the development of opportunities to manage costs by moving to electronic access for journals. Unfortunately, market-wide, publishers seem more likely to view electronic publishing as an opportunity to increase their revenues than as an opportunity to increase the affordability of their journals. In many cases, print simply cannot be cut without loss of electronic access to the title. Electronic access is sometimes tied to owning a print subscription and then added as an extra cost. In cases where print can be cancelled for a savings, the savings are typically on the order of 10% of the print price. For many titles this is less than a single year's inflation. Another concern is that most publishers make little or no commitment to ongoing archiving of electronic journals. The Libraries have estimated that currently only about $50,000 will be easily recovered by moving to electronic-only access for titles with good archiving commitments. Spending on print journals in FY03 was about $3,900,000.
The Libraries have also been scrutinizing their commitments to electronic indexes and abstracts. Past practice was to seek unlimited campus-wide use when purchasing access to databases for the campus. The Libraries are now using data on past usage to renegotiate lower pricing for more limited access to many electronic indexes and abstracts. While a few users may have to wait briefly to access these resources at times of peak use, this practice will allow continuing access to a wider range of resources for the campus as a whole.
The Libraries have also been monitoring the performance of the many vendors used to purchase information resources. Increasingly the Libraries have moved to alternate vendors where cost savings are possible. Users will notice many electronic indexes and abstracts moving to new interfaces as these changes are implemented. The Libraries only makes changes of this type after careful trial and evaluation of the new vendor to ensure that comparable functionality will be provided.
While all these approaches to collection management are part of responsible budget management, they offer only limited assistance in managing a shrinking budget. Ultimately, substantial cuts to the materials budget and significant inflation in serial prices have to be balanced by cancellation of serial titles.
