Library Review of Print Journals Costing $1,000 or More

In October 2001, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts withdrew its direct support for funding the library acquisitions budgets at UMass Amherst and the other 28 public higher education libraries in the state. Since FY 2003, the campus administration has demonstrated exceptional support for the Library by maintaining funding for the acquisition of books, journals, electronic resources, and other materials at close to the FY 2001 level.

While this funding is significant, the Library's acquisitions budget has lost substantial buying power due to the high rate of inflation in scholarly journals and other resources. The Library's inflation rate for paper journals in FY 2006 is 9%. This loss in buying power is coupled with an extraordinary demand for new electronic resources.

It is the Library's goal to maximize the benefit of every dollar we spend on information resources. To do so, we monitor the use of journals and electronic resources to ensure the cost is justified by demand. Similarly, we monitor demand for resources we do not own by recording statistics on interlibrary loan/document delivery (ILL) requests.

In FY 2005 we paid $1,565,184 for 4,400 print journal subscriptions. Our unbound journal usage analysis revealed only 8% of these 4,400 print journals have been used four or more times since September 2004. Faced with increased demands for additional electronic resources, we are concerned about the results of this analysis. We are focusing our initial review efforts on the 363 journals that cost $1,000 or more per year and their use. Our study revealed that 170 of them were used three or fewer times during the past year.

The Faculty Senate Research Library Council met on October 3, 2005, to discuss the results of this analysis. The Council endorsed a proposal to redirect the funds the Library spends for journals costing $1,000 or more that received three or fewer uses. This money will be used to acquire new electronic resources, subscribe to the most heavily requested titles on the 2002-2004 ILL request list, and purchase additional books. The Council envisioned the proposal as the beginning of an iterative process to make certain the Library purchases and provides access to resources in a timely and cost-effective manner. We are starting the process by reviewing titles costing $1,000 or more, but we plan to review titles costing less than that in the near future. The list of titles we propose to cancel is listed below.

Journals Costing $1,000 or more with 3 or fewer uses

If there are core journals important to your discipline that should not be canceled, or if there are other electronic resources or journals you would like the Library to subscribe to, please contact your Library liaison.

It is important to underscore this is not a journal cancellation project. The Library is dedicated to owning those information resources most needed by faculty and students. We are committed to providing timely access to lesser used resources that are vital to the teaching and research mission of the campus.

For more information, please contact Leslie Button, interim associate director for Collection Services, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, (413) 545-6845 or button@library.umass.edu.

 

 

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