For this year’s project, we focused on resources that have a cost per use (total annual price divided by a three-year average of numbers of times used) of greater than $40. In other words, if a $1000/year journal was used 20 times, it would make it on the list due to a price per use of $50. A $200/year journal with 20 uses would have a price per use of $10, and would therefore not be on the list of potential cancellations.

Journal and database subscriptions rise at a rate around 5-6% per year. Given that the majority of the library’s budget is devoted to resources of these kinds, this has a substantial impact every year. This is a problem that every academic library is dealing with right now. There have been discussions about the sustainability of this business model within the academic library community for many years; while new models of funding scholarly publishing are currently being pursued, we have not yet seen a significant change in our financial obligations.

We are members of various library purchasing consortia and negotiate aggressively with publishers and content providers. However, in most cases there is only one source to license specific journals from, creating a monopoly for the providers.

Going forward, we hope the annual review process will be focused not on preventing an anticipated budget deficit (as in 2019), but instead on redirecting money toward new subscriptions that meet current and emerging university needs. This process will not result in sudden major shifts in availability and will instead ensure that library funds are being used effectively and strategically.

Our Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service can request materials from Summit (37 academic library across the NW) and other libraries around the world. The Library is investing in improvements for our ILL system. These upgrades, slated for fall of 2019, will include single sign-on for your ILL account and potential improvements in delivery time for electronic articles. Our hope is that this will lessen any inconvenience that our review process causes.