Issues for an Academic Library

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Serials Budget

• Issues for an Academic Library
• Holly MaximLibrary 155Serials
• Fall 2003

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Introduction
I am interested in the selection process of
periodicals because I am interested in how and
where the Libraries are experiencing the greatest
change. Digitization has brought about the new
Gold Rush Days in the mining of credible,
current, and relevant academic information.
Academic Libraries are choking on the mushrooming
bite databases are taking from the acquisitions
budget. Question one is what is being done about
the skyrocketing costs of databases and their
quality? Who is leading the way? A second
question that persists is the longevity of the
digital archive. Who is working on that?
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I began my investigation by interviewing Jack
Harton, who is the Reference Librarian in charge
of selection for periodicals, here at Highline
Community College. I told him I was taking a
class on Serials for the Library Technicians
Program and had seen the processes of
Acquisitions and Cataloging. My mission with
him was to find out about the Selection process
particularly with databases accessing academic
journals. I asked what the critical path was.
Philosophy and Process

• Jack said
• First priority is to support the Highline
  curriculum.
• Secondly, he supports faculty, staff and
  students. While the public may use the Highline
  College library, he does no selection of general
  interest.

His goal is to look for the long term
perspective, and broadest coverage with his given
budget for selection of support information.
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Jack used an example of a professor coming to ask
for a certain journal on film. Jack searches
Serial Solutions, which is a present
subscription database that also reflects
Highlines own catalog holdings. Then he sends
what is available to the professor to see if that
will meet the need. If it looks like a program
is in development, then he will consider
subscribing to the more narrow focus of film.
Jack says that when the Budget is under pressure,
in-print periodicals are the first to go.
However, subscription databases often offer far
more than will be used and are very expensive.
At this point, HCC is moving toward databases
with full-text articles.
The issue is, when you unsubscribe from print
magazines you have the backlog that has
accumulated. When you unsubscribe from a
database, you are left with nothing.
Nevertheless, as Highline Community College moves
to more online classes, the online support of
databases becomes essential.
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This dilemma is not isolated to HCC, and has not
gone unnoticed by other academic institutions.
In a move that reflects the extent of academic
librarians' concerns with the inflexibility of
so-called "big deal" e-journal packages, Harvard
University likely will not sign a multi-year
contract to renew access to Elsevier's journals.
Harvard University Library Director Sidney Verba
said, "We haven't finished negotiating, but in
all likelihood we will not be signing the renewal
offer through NERL, in the way in which they have
put it forward." NERL, the Northeast Research
Library consortium, includes 21 research
libraries, Harvard among them. . . . Yale
Associate University Librarian Ann Okerson,
coordinator of NERL, acknowledged, "The Elsevier
deal is not attractive in a situation where one
needs and wants to cut lots of duplicate
subscriptions," Excerpt from Harvard is
Pursuing its Own Elsevier Deal 10/21/2003
http//www.libraryjournal.com/index.asp?layoutart
iclearticleidCA330375
Reed Elsevier may not be a household name but
most of us have heard of LexisNexis, one their
database acquisitions. Elsevier is based in
London and two of its competitors are Reuters and
Thompson Corporation. http//www.hoovers.com/reed-
elsevier-plc/--ID__93807--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml

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Like a number of research libraries, NCSU,(North
Carolina State University) is currently
negotiating a renewal of its Elsevier package,
which expires on December 31. The resolution
blasts the practice of bundling journals and
explicitly charges the NCSU libraries with
maintaining "strong and flexible control over the
state funds entrusted to it." . . . Some 38
percent of the libraries' serials budget goes to
Elsevier, representing 11 percent of NCSU's
journals. In late November Cornell University
decided not to renew its deal with Elsevier.
Harvard and the University of California system
have also publicly indicated their preference not
to renew their deals. Excerpt from NCSU Faculty
Takes Hard Line on New Elsevier Deal 12/8/2003
http//www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA340264?di
splaybreakingNews
The furor does not stop there. Through the link
in the school logo, is a series of letters
concerning the unfriendly negotiations
experienced by University of California at San
Francisco professors and the boycott that
resulted.
What are the alternatives? Jack told me it takes
the big universities to really move something to
a different place. Note Cornell Universitys name
above as one of the dissenting group.
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Project Euclid is a user-centered initiative to
create an environment for the effective and
affordable distribution of serial literature in
mathematics and statistics. Project Euclid is
designed to address the unique needs of
independent and society journals through a
collaborative partnership with scholarly
publishers, professional societies, and academic
libraries. GoalsThe end result is a vibrant
online information community for independent and
society journals. This will assure that
mathematics and statistics will continue to
benefit from a healthy balance of commercial
enterprises, scholarly societies, and independent
publishers. Funding comes from The Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation and an equipment grant from Sun
Microsystems. Project Euclid is a non-profit
initiative of Cornell University Library.
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http//www.eecs.harvard.edu/margo/slides/shield.g
if