|
Serials Cancellations for 2003: FAQ |
| Overview |
|
| Dean's Letter April 2002 October 2002 |
|
| FAQ | |
| Timetable | |
| Subject Contacts | |
| Cancellations List |
1. What about the legislative bill recently passed in support of the digital library?
The funding approved by the legislature is one time money only and cannot be used to support ongoing journal subscriptions. This funding is intended as a collaborative effort by the University of Maine System and the Maine State library for building the digital library and that includes funding for: telecommunication services, internet access, internal connections, hardware, training as well as content that is accessible statewide.
2. Why do we need to cancel journals?
The need to reduce continuing commitments against the Library's acquisitions budget is the result of a consistent and ongoing gap between available funding and the cost of materials. As noted in the Dean's October 31st letter, high inflation costs coupled with several years of flat funding have been major contributors to our current situation. The average cost of a journal purchased by research libraries across all fields has risen nearly 37% since 1997, with another 9-11% expected for 2003. In some fields the increases have been even greater -- chemistry, business/economics and sociology all around 51%, psychology at 47% and engineering at 43%. Please see as examples four titles in Fogler Library's current collection represented by percentage and in actual dollars. For a graphical representation of the effect of price increases on research libraries in general, see http://www.arl.org/stats/arlstat/graphs/2000t2.html
3. What was the goal of the journal cancellation project?
The Project's primary goal was to identify journals and other recurring commitments totaling approximately $615,000, a little under 22% of the total acquisitions budget, for potential elimination, in order that the Library can live within its budget allocation for fiscal year 2003.
4. How did we decide which journals to cancel?
The original list of serial titles that were routed to University colleges in 1999/2000 were used to create a lists of serial titles for possible cancellation. These lists consisted of titles that were initially ranked by faculty as "2" (useful) and those titles that were ranked '1' with a current cost over $7,000. We received input from many faculty regarding these titles (see Dean's letter October 31, 2002). As we still fell short of our goal, subject-specialist librarians examined all current titles on these two lists to determine which titles should be recommended to the Dean for cancellation. We examined the following indicators for each title:
5. Why can't the library take money from other parts of its budget?
All parts of the Library's budget are under great stress, and none are able to provide any relief to the acquisitions budget. During the past year the Library has undergone significant reductions in its operating budget. Fogler Library is among the most leanly staffed of any of the New England Land Grant institution libraries, or our peer group within the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). See the ARL website for additional statistical information: http://www.arl.org/stats/arlstat/index.html
6. Why hasn't the library joined a consortium in order to save money on journals?
The Library has been actively working with academic consortia for cost savings and increased titles access. Consortia deals with NELINET (New England Library Network), NECOP (the New England Council of Presidents, an academic consortium) and EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) have greatly enhanced access to journal literature, adding hundreds of previously unavailable titles to those already available. Our subscription to several indexes now give us access to a large number of of online titles that we had not had access to previously. These indexes also give us subject level access to these titles as well as titles already owned, providing students and faculty with direct links within the database record.
7. Why can't we just cut print subscriptions and use electronic versions instead?
A significant number of the titles we currently access electronically are intrinsically tied to our paper subscriptions. If we cancel the paper journal we will also lose electronic access. In other cases, the library pays an additional fee on top of the print subscription to provide access online. If the print subscription is canceled, the price of the online subscription goes up to a rate comparable to the previous print cost, or higher. Our current goal for cuts far exceeded this amount. Our arrangement with Kluwer Online through the EPSCoR consortium would not be as radically impacted but there is an expectation that we will continue to subscribe to some paper titles.
Publishers sometimes provide free access for a limited period as part of their marketing plan. They hope that users of their journals will lobby their librarians to continue these titles online when the publisher begins to charge for electronic access.
8. What was the process for the 2002 review of cancellations?
The procedures of this review were similar to those of the previous 1999/2000 cancellation project. As noted in #4 above, the University community had an opportunity to review the combined list of serials originally given a "2" (useful) ranking as well as the list made up of titles ranked #1 and costing over $7000/yr. Titles ranked "3" (minimally useful) have been canceled. When the list was mounted on this web site, the University community had at least three weeks to review the list and provide comments on individual titles they would like the library to retain. All comments were carefully considered and as noted in the Dean's October 31st letter, were forwarded and discussed with Campus administrators.
A second list was then prepared based on the above comments by the University community and included recommendations by subject-specialist librarians.
9. Is this a cut that will impact all departments?
All of the University Libraries' serial commitments are subject to review as part of this project. Serial titles related to all University departments will be impacted.
10. Whom should I contact in the Library for more information?
Each program or department within the University has a librarian assigned who is responsible for collection development and management activities for subjects important to that field. Please feel free to contact your program or department librarian representative on any matter related to this project.
11. If I stated my concerns about canceling a title, was the title automatically saved?
The Library wanted to hear about concerns and attempted to maintain as many subscriptions as possible. All comments were carefully considered and as noted in the Dean's October 31st letter. These were forwarded and discussed with Campus administrators. Our goal was to identify subscription cuts totaling $615,000 in order to manage the FY 2003 acquisitions budget responsibly. Unfortunately, the Library was not able to maintain every title in which a member of the faculty, staff, or student body expressed an interest.
12. How does this relate to the previous journal cancellations projects?
A cancellation project was conducted in 1999/2000. A final list of the titles canceled at that time is available here. This project helped meet the immediate budget shortfall at that time but the dollars saved were not enough to even address the budget increases due to inflation of the remaining titles in the very next fiscal year.
Note: The savings via cuts that have taken place still place the library short of its budgetary requirements.
13. What has the library done in recent years to address this escalating problem?
The library has taken a number of parallel steps to try and address the problem. Along with transferring progressively more funds from the monograph acquisitions budget we have looked to potential economies within serials. Consortia participation, detailed in question #6 above has been very successful in expanding our collection of titles so that the same dollars purchases online access to a much broader catalogue from a given publisher. We have also turned to purchasing journal access at the article level through online databases. For example Academic Search Premier, one of our statewide database purchases, includes article level access to 2,560 peer reviewed journals. Lobbying efforts in collaboration with the State Library have yielded significant fiscal support for online databases as well.
14. What can a faculty member do to help?
Faculty members can contact the administration to discuss the impact on research and recruitment of losing these materials.
As the Dean's October 31st letter states:
In the next few weeks I will ask the Chair of the Faculty Senate to create a task force on Libraries that includes faculty, students, library staff, and University administration to review the status of libraries at the University of Maine and make recommendations about the future role Fogler Library will play at the University, in the System, and in the State.
We would like to encourage active lobbying for and involvement with this task force. Faculty and librarians can work more closely together to identify acquisition priorities.
15. Can I help by donating a copy of my personal subscription?
Over the years, Fogler Library has received many generous offers from faculty to provide personal copies as a substitute for the nearly always higher-priced institutional subscription. While we appreciate these offers there are several reasons why we do not pursue them. In some instances, a personal subscription to a journal is just that. Publishers do not permit subscribers to give their copies to an institution. Many of our serial subscriptions are processed through a vendor, such as EBSCO. By using a vendor, we are able to keep track of our subscriptions and claim missing issues. Experience has taught us that relying on this practice would often delay current issues from being available to our patrons. This being said, we will kindly accept issues of older serial titles that will fill in gaps in our collections. In the area of monographs, we would very much welcome gifts of current books and conference proceedings that are relevant to current courses and research here at the University.
16. When will the cancellations go into effect?
As noted in the Dean's October 31st letter, journal titles that were cut last semester will cease to be received as of December 31, 2002. Journal titles canceled this October will cease to be received as of January 1, 2003.
17. How can I get access to titles once they have been canceled?
Once a title has been canceled, UM faculty, students, and staff will have access to papers from canceled titles through the normal interlibrary loan process. We are now receiving many of these interlibrary loans through Ariel, an Internet-based document delivery system. We are currently working to implement desktop delivery of these documents. For documents not available in this way, we will endeavor to procure them in a timely manner. This will include the possible use of library-mediated document delivery suppliers.
oroweb@vega.ursus.maine.edu | Revised:01/28/2008
Home | Resources | Services | Search | Help | Site Map | Campus
