Serials Review and Reduction Project 2009/2010

UPDATE 9/29/2009: The list of cancellation decisions made during the 2009 Fall Term is now available. See “Cancellation Decisions as of Fall 2009."

Why are we conducting a Serials Review and Reduction Project?
 

Because of the current economic climate, libraries across the state of North Carolina and the whole country have had to reduce their expenditures on purchased materials, whether they are one-time purchases such as books and DVDs or continuing subscriptions, such as journals, magazines, newspapers, and databases.
 

Inflation accounts for a large proportion of the cost of subscriptions. The library spent almost $2,000,000 on subscriptions to print and electronic resources during the 2008/2009 FY, and with a predicted inflation rate of 8-9%, we need additional funding of $145,560 to $163,755 to maintain the subscriptions we currently have in FY 2009/2010. Unfortunately, the North Carolina General Assembly cut its usual funding for library materials inflation in the 2009-2011 budget.  The library’s materials budget for FY 2009/2010 does not include inflation. In addition, we had a significant budget shortfall last fiscal year that we were able to work around by delaying payments, but these payments have come due during this fiscal year. We have already cancelled some low use or duplicate titles, as you will see in the list of cancelled titles linked on the left side of the page, but we need to make further cancellations to stay within our budget.

In sum, the library’s budget has not received sufficient funds to support the level of subscriptions that we previously held. We are unable to take on new subscriptions, and we need to cancel some of our current subscriptions. As mentioned, our library is not alone in this predicament; see the link on the left to serials review and reduction projects at other universities.

What the Serials Review and Reduction Project Entails

During fall term 2009/2010, the library will be contacting the various academic departments and asking them to consider titles to which the library has subscribed using the portion of the library budget that has been allocated to individual departments’ subscriptions. Each department will be asked to decide (and communicate with library faculty) whether these titles are essential, useful, or not useful.

In addition, library faculty will collect information on how heavily these resources are used and whether they are critical to the library’s mission. Library faculty will then decide which titles to cancel, taking into account faculty input and library-gathered data.

Faculty will then be notified of the cancellations via this website.

Contact

If you have any questions about this process, please feel free to contact these individuals.

Arlene Hanerfeld
Associate University Librarian for Technical and Collection Services/Associate Professor
910-962-3691
hanerfelda [at] uncw [dot] edu (subject: Serials%20Reduction%20Project)

Rebecca Kemp
Serials Coordinator
910-962-7220
kempr [at] uncw [dot] edu (subject: Serials%20Reduction%20Project)

Sue Cody
Interim University Librarian & Associate University Librarian for Public Services/Associate Professor
910-962-3271
codys [at] uncw [dot] edu (subject: Serials%20Reduction%20Project)