From the Library Director

Many of you are aware that the UAMS Library’s budget has not increased enough each year to cover the cost of inflation in the journal subscriptions, which averages 10% annually. Since the Library spends over $1 million on journals and databases annually, we need a budget increase of about $100,000 each year to cover the increased costs. For the past three years, we have used some one-time money to help cover the cost increases, but we do not anticipate receiving any one-time money or a budget increase for the coming year. Therefore, we must cancel a significant amount of journal and/or database subscriptions.

We have distributed a list of possible journal and database subscription cancellations to all of the colleges and several other units on campus, and have been working with the Library Advisory Committee to get input about which journals are most important and need to be kept. Please see the article by Mary Hawks elsewhere in this newsletter to access the list of potential cancellations and give us your input as soon as possible. The cancellations on the list will not be enough to cover all of the increased costs, so after input is reviewed and the first list of cancellations is finalized, a second list of potential cancellations will be developed and circulated for input. We appreciate your help in determining how the limited resources of the Library can best be spent.

The rapidly rising cost of journals and databases is causing major problems for academic health sciences libraries throughout the world. One initiative which is attempting to address the problems with the current publishing system is called open access publishing. See my article on scholarly communication issues elsewhere in this newsletter for more information about this important initiative.

Mary L. Ryan,
Library Director