Summer 2009 Budget Developments

August 15, 2009 — In FY09 the Kennedy Library reduced database and journal subscriptions to address the growing gap between our base funding for collections, and the cost of maintaining subscriptions to databases and journals whose prices inflate every year, some as much as 8% or more per year.

In FY10 we continue to face a large gap between our collection costs and our base budget funding. To close this gap, College Librarians are identifying print journals we could cancel without significant loss in access to Cal Poly faculty and students. Many of these journals are available as part of large, multi-publisher full text article databases like Lexis-Nexis or Academic Search Elite.

In addition we are reviewing all our research databases to identify titles with low levels of use or where acceptable alternative indexing sources are available.

As in FY09, the Library has maintained its commitment to purchasing books in print, and will continue to purchase electronic books selectively to meet curricular and research needs.

The Library will be seeking both private funding and additional sources of base funding in order to maintain spending on critical collections and databases in FY11. While we remain optimistic, if we are not successful in this effort, we will face a budget gap in FY11 that may require us to make substantial additional cuts to journal and database subscriptions.

College librarians will be seeking input from faculty in their Colleges as they make their recommendations for canceling or adding any journals or databases. College faculty input will be essential to help library faculty make the best possible decisions under these difficult circumstances.

For more information, please contact Anna K. Gold, University Librarian.