University of Regina Library Acquisitions Budget Challenges Colleen Murphy, Acting University Librarian Barbara Nelke, Head Library Technical Services and Collections Open Forum – February 25 and 29, 2016

Outline How we got here Current acquisitions budget Backgrounder on the Big Deal Why did we make the cuts we did? What will they mean to you? Next steps? Questions

The Making of the Perfect Storm…or The Ticking Time Bomb “Flat” acquisitions budget over past 10 or so years Annual inflation of 6-7% on purchases Precipitous drop in the Canadian dollar (approx. 80% of our purchases are in US dollars) Tied into “big deals”

“FLAT” Acquisitions Budget National context Local context

Larger Context: University Finances 5

Local Context Acquisitions Budget 2008/ /16

CURRENCY EFFECT

Library purchases by currency

Acquisitions budget shortfall

Strategy Used to Cover Shortfall

WHAT DID WE CANCEL TO COVER the 2015/16 shortfall? Canadian Literary Centre Books 24x7 Books in print NYT and WAJ micro-digital newspapers Access UN 53 individual ejournal titles CRSP Compustat Cambridge Journals Springer Journals

WHAT DID WE CANCEL TO COVER the 2015/16 shortfall? Canadian Literary Centre Books 24x7 Books in print NYT and WAJ micro-digital newspapers ($200/use) Access UN $400/use 53 individual ejournal titles

WHAT DID WE CANCEL TO COVER the 2015/16 shortfall? CRSP Compustat

WHAT DID WE CANCEL TO COVER the 2015/16 shortfall? Cambridge Journals (225 Titles) Springer Journals (1912 titles) $128,000 US ($174,000 CDN) $140, 000 savings – hoping $30-40,000 will be enough to cover individual titles subscriptions Requests to date - $25,000 approved THE BIG DEAL

Serials Crisis – 1990’s – “plus ca change” Libraries cancel titles Publishers increase prices to make up for cancellations More libraries cancel more titles Publishers increase price Annual Subscription price increases 10%

The “Big Deal” = “Good Deal” ? Advantages – Access to more journal titles – allowed us to go from approx – 50-60,000 titles – Simpler to manage – fewer licenses, platforms, etc. – Initially government subsidized (Paid full price for the first three years) Disadvantages – Little flexibility – cancellation restrictions – Less institutional input – much of the content was not necessarily something we would have picked – Ate up funds that would have been spent on other materials

OLIGARCHY OF PUBLISHERS

RECAP Frazier predicted in 2001 that this model was unsustainable -predicted that Big Deals would – weaken librarians’ ability to shape the collection – increase libraries’ dependence on a handful of commercial publishers – increase in price at a rate that would eventually become unsustainable There were other critics – among them Harvard whose Faculty Advisory Council issued a letter in 2012 accusing large journal publishers of creating an environment that is “fiscally unsustainable and academically restrictive”

WHO? Wiley Cambridge Springer Taylor and Francis Elsevier

What were we buying back in 2008/09?

What are we buying now?

What are these eresources?

WHAT DID WE CANCEL TO COVER the 2015/16 shortfall? Cambridge Journals (225 Titles) Springer Journals (1912 titles) $128,000 US ($174,000 CDN) $140,000 savings – expecting $30-40,000 will be enough to cover individual titles subscriptions Requests to date - $25,000 approved

USAGE

SUBJECT COVERAGE

Examples “decisions” Cambridge “Continuity and Change” $543 price 2013 (19), 2014 (8), 2015 (10) $45 per article download ($25 is benchmark based on ILL) Library retains access to Springer “Marine Biology” $12,032 Price 2013 (39), 2014 (17), 2015 (43) $364 per article download We have access with one year embargo from another source.

Future Strategy to Cover Projected Shortfall

Criteria for Evaluating Databases (CAT ) – Usage statistics/cost per download – Accreditation – Comments from faculty – Cost of acquiring material via other means (e.g. cost per view and ILL) – Impact factor – Overlap in content/comparable resources

For Discussion How to measure? What to measure? Number of uses? Type of use? Cost per use? Length of use? Value to the discipline? Redundancy/uniqueness? Important use/marginal use?

Change in Thinking? What does this really mean? Shift in thinking? What is important? Is it the journal or the article? Ownership or discoverability Article level purchase? ILL?

Questions? ions/acquisitions-budget/index.html ions/acquisitions-budget/index.html