Report of the ad hoc Task Force on Fogler Periodical Collections

Report of the ad hoc Task Force
on 
Fogler Periodical Collections

Introduction

I National Perspective

II UMaine Funding History

III Short-term Recommendation

IV Long Term Process for Collection Development: Strategies and Recommendations

V Strategies for Funding Growth

VI Relationship to Fogler Expansion

Appendix

Introduction

Executive Vice President and Provost Robert Kennedy appointed this Task Force to make recommendations on how best to make adjustments in the Fogler journal collection in light of the changes made during the summer months and the second addition of new base funds identified in mid-September (totaling an increase of $600,000 in the base acquisitions budget). Some of this funding comes through the Maine Economic Improvement Fund, which must be devoted to areas designated in the legislation. Another portion comes from the unified fee paid by students.

The Task Force approached this assignment with the following five postulates guiding its deliberations.

1) The Fogler acquisitions base budget must increase annually.

2) No increase that the University can sustain will be sufficient to allow business to continue as it has in the past. Hard decisions will need to be made often, if not annually.

3) A static journal collection, or one that changes only by attrition, is not acceptable. The collection needs to be reflective of the changing needs of the students and the faculty, which requires a continuing reassessment of the titles in the collection.

4) The monograph budget must not be starved to support an increasingly ravenous journal budget.

5) The problem of maintaining and improving access to information through the Fogler library is not an issue internal to the University of Maine, to be dealt with by this institution alone. Fogler is Maine’s only research library and serves a statewide clientele. Its resources must be available to all who need them, and this means the responsibility of maintaining them has to be shared more broadly by the UMS and the State of Maine.

The Task Force agreed at its initial meeting that its contribution will be to suggest one or more mechanisms by which 1) Fogler can preserve access to scholarly journals to the extent possible within budgetary constraints, 2) the faculty can have an effective voice in decisions affecting the nature of the collections, and 3) the University can better plan for regular base increases in the Fogler acquisitions budget. The Task Force was very clear that it has neither the expertise nor the mandate to make decisions regarding which titles to continue, which to change to electronic access only, which to discontinue altogether, and which to add. That is best left to impartial library professionals informed by the needs of the University’s faculty and students.

The Task Force also concluded early in its deliberations that there is an immediate issue - review of the decisions made during the summer, 2003 - and a longer-term issue - establishing an ongoing policy guiding collections development. This report addresses both. It also seeks to provide perspective for the issues of such deep concern at the University of Maine by reviewing briefly the changes in academic publishing and the challenges they pose for all research libraries.

I. The National Context

College and university libraries across the country are faced with mounting pressures to rethink and reorient their acquisition of scholarly journals and other serials in the face of numerous factors that have made past practices no longer desirable or feasible. These factors include, but are not limited to, substantially increased costs of journals (more so in some fields than others), increasing specialization of journals which effectively reduces the number of readers of all but the most highly visible and / or highly interdisciplinary journals, dramatic expansion in the number of journals and other serials being published, storage problems as a derivative of this expansion, and other factors. Consistent with larger, nationwide patterns in this regard, the University of Maine found itself in a position this year in which substantial reduction in the number of journal subscriptions by Fogler Library appeared to be the only feasible solution to a mounting financial crisis in that aspect of the Library's operation.

It is important to note that although this problem is widespread and did not appear overnight, the severity of the matter has indeed escalated sharply in the past several years. This severity has forced significant and decisive changes in journals-acquisitions in many institutions of higher learning across a broad spectrum of institutional-types, from small liberal arts colleges to major, doctoral granting research universities. Far from being alone in this problem, or being unique because of idiosyncratic personal, institutional, or environmental factors, this aspect of the library problems at the University of Maine are in fact rather emblematic of a sea-change in the nationwide economy of scholarly information-dissemination. As noted in a recent summary co-sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries, The Association of American Universities, and the Pew Higher Education Roundtable:

The underlying issue is the disjunction between the sociology and the economics of academic publication itself and the processes through which the research community disseminates knowledge and judges the quality of work produced by its members.

The Library Task Force has thus undertaken to address the problem of journals acquisitions at the University of Maine by first considering the local problem in light of larger nationwide patterns, and to ascertain which specific approaches have proven most effective in resolving the general problem as it manifests itself in particular cases.

II Fogler acquisitions budget five-year history

The Fogler acquisitions budget for the current year and the past five shows the changes in the amounts available and the growth of the funding gap. Funds intended for monographs have diverted to support journals and databases. The amounts expended in excess of budgeted amounts come from reallocation of one-time savings in the overall Fogler budget, fixed-length state funding for the statewide electronic library project, and from an annual contribution of $80,000 (to continue through FY 08) from the pouring-rights contract with Coca Cola.

III Short-term recommendations

Fogler Library has electronic access to approximately 600 of the approximately 900 journals that were dropped from the paper subscription list in August. About 300 of the discontinued titles are available in paper format only, and therefore the issues of these paper-only journals will be inaccessible through Fogler beginning January 2004. However, many of the requests for reinstatement of subscriptions are for journals that continue to be available in electronic form.

Even with the growth of $600,000 in FY 04 acquisition budget compared to that for FY 03, the funds not yet committed are insufficient to restore all subscription cancellations. Except for approximately $10,000 for Project Muse, and $41,500 for the electronic version of Web of Science (to replace the discontinued hard copy), both of which actions were taken in August, no new titles have been added. To balance the perceived need for hard copy of some journals against the needs to restore some paper-only subscriptions and to acquire selected new titles, the Task Force recommends that the funds remaining uncommitted be apportioned between restorations and new titles. Deans will be notifying their faculties to forward to Fogler staff their highest priorities for restorations and new titles. The Fogler acquisitions staff will work from the requests submitted to develop prioritized lists for restorations and new titles. The staff will then circulate these lists to the colleges and post them electronically for comment, and will work with the Faculty Senate Library Committee to make the final selections in light of comments received. This process needs to be completed no later than Friday, December 12.

IV Long Term Process for Collection Development: Strategies and Recommendations

The Task Force recognizes that there has not been a well-articulated, inclusive process for culling, changing, or adding journals to Fogler Library. We recommend that a new process be devised that will give faculty members a more direct voice in the decision-making, provide equity across disciplines, and include a communication component that will help keep the university community informed and involved. Because the Faculty Senate represents the faculty of the University as a whole, we recommend charging the Library Committee of the Senate to develop a recommendation for such a process. In order for this process to be implemented for the 2005 subscription renewal deadlines, the Senate will need to pass a resolution containing its recommendations no later than the end of February 2004. If that deadline is not met the Fogler staff will once again be faced with making many decisions after the semester has ended.

Strategies

The ad hoc Task Force considered three different collection strategies in developing its recommendation. Each of these strategies has problems as well as advantages, some of which are delineated in the appendix. Although the options are presented here as separate and distinct, the ultimate solution involves elements of more than one.

1. Adopt a philosophy of maximum reliance on digital journals, with paper copies being purchased only when the digital format is inappropriate or unavailable.

2. Earmark a percentage of the library acquisition’s budget for journals to each department, so that each department can make its selections within that budget. A key decision for this option would be an equitable way to decide the allocation amount among departments. Further, a sizable portion would need to remain with the library staff for the purchase of some undergraduate materials that may not get listed, for cross-disciplinary journals, etc.

3. Continue the current process without fundamental change, in which the librarians make the decisions based on feedback, usage, and their expertise. Choices between electronic format and hard copy will be made on a case-by-case basis, depending upon needs and usage patterns. The Fogler staff, working with the Senate Library Committee, will develop an annual process for faculty members to rank the journals they need so librarians have information on which journals are most important, which ones cross disciplines, etc.

Of course, the Library Committee may see other solutions not envisioned by the Task Force. And regardless of what process may be adopted, Fogler Library needs to develop a more pro-active process for informing and involving the faculty in collection development. We suggest that each department designate a Library Liaison, if no one currently serves that function, and that the Fogler librarians hold regular group meetings to discuss collections issues and policies.

Recommendations

The members of the Task Force believe the essential mission of the academic library is to be a portal to information. This has always been the mission of libraries, but until recently this meant acquiring and maintaining materials in print, as hard copy was the only form in which information was available. The printed page remains the principal medium of information sharing in many areas, and acquiring and maintaining printed materials continues to be essential if Fogler is to fulfill its mission. But the information content - not the medium - is at the core of Fogler’s mission, and if by turning to electronic media Fogler can increase the amount of information made accessible to UMaine students and faculty members, it would be irresponsible not to do so.

The Task Force recommends adopting option 3 above. We believe the Fogler librarians, working more closely and more systematically with the faculty, should continue to guide the collections policy. The Fogler staff has no vested interest in the process except to develop and maintain the materials that best serve the needs of the University. Regardless of the funding mechanisms the University eventually adopts, the acquisitions budget is unlikely to keep pace with needs. Decisions affecting the titles available through Fogler will need to be made on an ongoing basis; this is not a one-time issue. We believe the Fogler professional staff is best placed to manage this process.

V Strategies for Increasing Funding

1. Develop named endowment funding for well-identified sections of the journal collection.

Although we think it unlikely that benefactors will find it attractive to contribute to the journals budget in an unfocused way, we do think that persons with particular interests in, for example, American history, might be interested in funding a particular journal or collection of related journals through an endowment, and that such endowments would be relatively affordable.

2. Treat the base budget for collections as a mandated cost increase, comparable to increases in compensation and utilities.

We recommend indexing the base acquisitions budget to a composite measure of inflationary costs, composed of salary and benefit increases and basic utility charges. As those costs go up, the Fogler acquisitions budget will also go up as some fixed function of these other increases. This will not, of course, ensure that no journals will be cut, as the University cannot sustain base increases that meet the current inflation in journal expenses. It will make sure the base budget does not remain static.

3. Seek targeted funding from the University of Maine System and from the State of Maine (perhaps through the Maine State Library) to help Fogler fulfill its statewide responsibilities.

Fogler Library acquires and manages extensive resources for the University of Maine System overall and for the State of Maine. It provides many materials and services available nowhere else in Maine. Its mission and reach go far beyond the UMaine campus. UMaine cannot meet this statewide responsibility within the current budgeting structure.

4. Promote cooperation on electronic access between Fogler and the private research organizations receiving state funding.

Maine has premier biomedical research institutions currently receiving $20 million in state bond funding to support research and economic development. Biomedical science is an area in which Fogler’s collections are not extensive. Conversely, the libraries of the private research institutes lack Fogler’s breadth of coverage. The Governor’s Office may be able to facilitate an agreement among those institutions receiving state funding for research and development to make their electronic databases mutually accessible.

VI. Relationship to Fogler Expansion

Fogler Library has run out of space to house its collections. The Library Annex, built in 1996, is full. Seating space for students in Fogler has been taken away to accommodate monographs and bound journals, to the point that Fogler now is far below national benchmarks for study space based upon student population. The Special Collections area in Fogler is so full that Fogler may have to refuse gifts of important historical material from Maine.

In response to these problems the University is making plans for an expansion and renovation of Fogler that promises to be the most expensive project ever undertaken on this campus or anywhere within the University of Maine System. But even with a major addition to Fogler, the University will need a collections policy that minimizes the space required for storage. Extensive use of compact shelving is part of the solution, as is housing seldom used materials off-site. Greater reliance on technologies minimizing reliance on paper also likely has a major role to play.

During its discussions the Task Force identified a number of issues arising from the various options discussed. We make no claim that this is a complete or exhaustive list, but we include them here for the information of the Library Committee of the Faculty Senate.

Option 1: Increased reliance on electronic journals

Our present acquisitions budget for journals can be leveraged to acquire a significantly greater number of titles by devoting as much of it as possible to buying electronic databases and journal packages. It is not possible to give a precise number because prices are negotiated and various numbers of titles are sold as packages by various venders and publishers. Should the University decide to use electronic media whenever it can, there will remain journals that are not in databases or which are not appropriate for electronic media (e.g., the graphic arts).

Related Issues:

Not every faculty member now has the appropriate hardware and/or software to access electronic journals conveniently. The University will need to budget for ongoing upgrades and replacements.

The library may also need to increase the number of access stations within the library itself.

Not everyone likes to work from a computer screen rather than from hard copy. However, printers today are fast and inexpensive.

Databases and journal packages may include numerous titles that no one on campus has specifically requested. It is not possible to tailor packages to contain only the journals of special interest - one gets some “chaff” along with the wheat, but what’s chaff today may be someone’s wheat tomorrow.

“Browsing” databases designed to respond to key-word searches can be difficult. Fogler should give emphasis wherever possible to acquiring electronic packages that include browser-friendly tables of contents and abstracts.

Continued access to database information available in years past may be lost if the University discontinues a package. Sometimes the University may be able to negotiate continued access to information purchased in previous years even if a contract is not renewed. In other cases access to the information, both current and past, is leased annually and is lost if the lease is not continued.

The electronic publication of scholarly journals and their inclusion in databases is an emerging market in which changes do occur and will continue to occur. It is unclear how it may be affected by technologies as yet undeveloped. There will be a continuing need to monitor database packages to make sure that wanted titles are replaced if they are dropped from a particular package.

The “intellectual shelf life” of some journals, particularly in the sciences, is quite limited, and on-site access to older material is not essential. For some other disciplines, such as history and literary scholarship, the useful half-life of information is much greater, and the need to have materials on-site is correspondingly greater.

Provisions will need to be made to ensure full access to materials by persons with impaired vision. This may not be much of a problem, as computers already are used to assist persons who have difficulty with reading printed material.

Option 2: Earmarking journal budgets by department or discipline

A different approach to meeting the information needs of the students and the faculty within a limited budget is to transfer the decision-making process from the Library professional staff to the academic departments. The University would earmark the majority of its acquisitions budget by department or discipline. Each department would then make its journal selections annually within its overall allocation, cutting titles when necessary and adding titles when possible. This procedure puts the decision process squarely in the hands of the faculty.

Related Issues:

Developing the earmark allocations could become very divisive. The following are some of the issues that would need to be considered in developing priorities for allocation.

● Doctoral programs are the most intensive users of information, and will therefore have the greatest relative needs compared to units offering masters-level education or baccalaureate-level programs exclusively. Allocations for doctoral units logically would be greater than for other units.

● More faculty members in a discipline translate into a greater breadth of scholarly interests, which in turn is reflected in the curriculum. The size of departments would need to be a criterion.

● The University seeks to increase its level of sponsored research, and this means that journals have to be available to support fundable areas. The opportunities for attracting outside funding would therefore logically be a criterion in determining library allocations.

● The University’s justification for indirect costs on grants relates in part to the need to maintain the library to support the funded research. Therefore, those units generating ICR dollars may feel justified in claiming a larger share of the journal budget.

● Interdisciplinary fields of study may suffer under a department-based earmarking procedure. These fields tend not to be the principal priority of any one department.

● There may be a tendency to “hold on” to earmarks that may lead to inclusion of titles simply to retain for a department a given share of the total budget.

Option 3: Continuing the traditional practice of empowering the Fogler Professional Staff to guide acquisitions decisions.

Related Issues:

The fact that Fogler’s journal collection remained essentially static for the past thirteen years led to a weakening of communications between Fogler professionals and the faculty. As long as nothing changed, there was little need to communicate about titles, except to build a perpetually unrealized wish list for new titles. The budget patches of the past several years, along with the fairly inconspicuous discontinuation of journals the faculty had ranked as third- and second-level priorities in the past, finally were unable to bridge the funding gap this year, forcing decisions to be made by Fogler during the summer in consultation with a small faculty committee and the Senate.

Fogler needs to reinvigorate its communication with the faculties of the various disciplines. There should be ongoing, active discussion regarding priorities for periodicals so that the Fogler staff is able to make acquisitions decisions in a manner that allows ample notification to the faculty and meets the contract cycle.

The problems surrounding academic publishing are national in scope. It may be better to avoid radical change in acquisitions philosophy until the future direction of academic publishing becomes better defined and a national strategy emerges.

Task Force Members:

Douglas Gelinas, (Chair) Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs

Professor Bryan Pearce, President of Faculty Senate

Dean Ann Leffler, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Professor Dianne Hoff, Faculty Senate Library Committee Chair

Professor Rebecca Van Beneden, School of Marine Sciences

Professor James Warhola, Department of Political Science

Joyce Rumery, Acting Director of Fogler Library

Suzanne Paonessa, Associate Director of Budget and Business Services ex officio

Professor Thomas Parchman, School of Music, University of Southern Maine

 

December 2003

Revised: 01/28/2008

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