Almost one year has passed since the Folsom Library experienced reductions in the electronic resources offered to students, reductions which continue on in the Fiscal Year 2007 library budget. The budget cuts for FY07 would have amounted to $322,000, but much has changed in the past few weeks as President Shirley Ann Jackson has authorized the restoration of $180,000 to the library budget for FY07.
These reductions were the result of inflation and an increase in journal prices, “essentially a double whammy,” according to Robert Mayo, acting director of Rensselaer Research Libraries. According to Mayo, an additional $25,000 has been reallocated from existing library funds, bringing the total funds that will be applied to electronic resource subscription restorations for FY07 to $205,000.
Allocating the restoration funds required identifying the most essential resources, based on usage statistics and user feedback. Mayo emphasized the importance of the statistics and feedback. He stated that, “We … listen to our users,” including faculty and students. A list of journal subscriptions to be restored and to be canceled has been submitted to the Dean’s Council with a response expected in early November. The FY07 Journal Cancellation list is available online in the Collection Management portion of RensSearch.
Currently, if a patron requires a journal that the Library does not have, they have a few options which vary according to expense and time. The document delivery service Ingenta, which is available to faculty and graduate students, allows for ordering journal articles that are not part of Rensselaer’s collections at a subsidized cost. Also available is an interlibrary loan, which provides cheaper service when compared to online journal subscription costs. Both services, however, do not always act as a complete substitute.
When looking at the total number of electronic resource downloads and expenditures, the average journal subscription cost per download was $1.85 for FY ’06. The subscription cost per download of those journals being cancelled is much higher. The Journal of Liquid Chromatography & Related Technologies, for example, had an average cost of $580.74 per download. To access this journal it would have been cheaper to use the other library services.
Maintaining access to scholarly journals is important, especially as RPI expands its own research and intellectual pursuits. According to Chief Information Officer John Kolb, with the creation of the Biotech Center and the increased focus on biotechnology comes the increase in the amount of scholarly publications coming from our campus. When the library collection grows, this increase puts pressure on the library’s budget.
However, this problem is not unique to Rensselaer. All academic libraries must contend with increased journal prices and the constant influx of new scholarly publications. In the end, RPI ranked significantly below schools such as Carnegie Mellon and MIT in the U.S. News and World Report Top Engineering Schools: Graduate Schools 2006, for the amount of library material expenditures per student as well as the total library expenditures. Kolb emphasized the need for the library to aggressively improve its electronic collections as they provide more flexibility for patrons than printed copies.
Students are affected by these changes and require more flexibility in resources. David Pettengill ’07, a Science, Technology, and Society major, stated that “[electronic resources are the] only feasible way to do a thorough research project in this day and age without having extensive advanced knowledge on the subject.”
Ellen Esrock, professor of Language, Literature and Communication, said these services do not substitute the MLA bibliography journal that she uses in her classes. One of the original voices in response to last year’s budget cut, Esrock went through the H&SS faculty council, and later through the Faculty Senate to pass a resolution stating the need for a quality research library. In regards to the student and faculty response to last year’s budget cut as well as the current budget restoration, Esrock stated, “[I am] very happy as I hope students and faculty will not let it drop until we rise up in standings among peers.”
According to Robert Mayo, the future of the library’s collections lies in gifts, endowments, and increased involvements in library associations. Library consortia facilitate contractual negotiations between publishers and college libraries, and also increase the amount of documents available to libraries. One year from now, Mayo said he hopes the library will be involved in new consortia and that there will be “a greater awareness in a year from today of gifts and endowments.” As Pettengill stated, the Folsom Library needs greater cooperation with the libraries of other colleges as well as significant financial support to adequately serve the needs of students and faculty.
