A. Current Situation1) BackgroundThis year, as in prior years since 1990, the NDSU Libraries budget will be insufficient to meet the needs of the campus community. In Fiscal Year 1995-1996 the anticipated shortfall is approximately $234,000 and consists of the following items:
In the past such shortfalls have been made up through internal reallocations in the Libraries' budget or one-time infusion of funds from the office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs. For example, this year's shortfall will be reduced because Craig Schnell, Interim Vice President for Academic Affairs, will provide funds for the online catalog and the MINITEX contract shortage. However, to avoid such situations in the future, he asked the University Senate Library Committee to work with John Beecher, Director of Libraries, to examine, in detail, the Libraries' budget and make recommendations as to how the budget shortfall can be addressed. a. Serials CrisisJournal proliferation and relentless inflation have created a nationwide "serials crisis" for academic libraries. During the past decade, journal inflation rates have ranged from 10 to more than 20 percent per year. Because of unfavorable exchange rates, periodicals published overseas have inflated at even higher rates. Factors publishers often cite for increasing subscription costs are: additional pages to be published, increased paper and postage costs, inflation, value of the dollar for foreign titles, and the need for publishers to make up revenue lost from a large number of cancellations. Contrary to conventional wisdom, academic library budgets nationally have increased less rapidly than other university expenditures. United States Department of Education figures show that budgets of libraries have declined through the 1980s to the point they have lost almost all the ground gained in the preceding 20 years. NDSU Libraries has not been immune to these inflationary pressures. Although for several years the Libraries' budget kept pace with inflation, static materials' budgets during the past two years have forced the problem to a critical stage. To keep serials expenses within its allotted budget, the Libraries initiated two major serials cancellation projects. Consequently, in the last biennium the Libraries canceled more than 350 titles to save more than $200,000. b. Comparison with Peer Institution LibrariesNDSU Libraries is under funded in comparison to libraries at other institutions similar in size and function. The table below shows NDSU Libraries funded near the bottom when looking at expenditures per student. In fact, an updated comparison of this data would show NDSU Libraries slipping even further because of new funding initiatives at South Dakota State University and the University of South Dakota.
Peer Universities IPEDS Statistics FY 1994 Comparison
Lib/ Other Student Materials Serials Total Op Total Total Microform Studen $$$ per
Prof Staff Asst $$$ $$$ $$$ Vols Subscrip Units # Enroll Student
FTE FTE FTE # #
U. Nevada-Reno 26.16 51.75 36.50 932,279 1,391,038 6,335,467 881,223 6,881 2,863,379 12,137 522
U. of Wyoming 48.00 42.25 27.07 419,239 1,800,376 5,282,359 1,112,034 12,033 2,411,894 12,012 440
U. Idaho 23.00 35.00 17.00 284,384 1,140,487 3,513,314 819,383 10,547 586,233 10,044 350
U. North Dakota 30.33 37.00 26.10 346,852 1,217,691 3,813,569 853,254 8,197 2,300,455 12,029 317
New Mexico SU 35.00 57.00 50.00 861,686 1,231,218 4,995,751 929,792 6,911 1,292,543 15,788 316
U. of Montana 15.63 44.01 27.32 201,785 728,608 3,368,902 532,567 4,712 1,056,116 10,828 311
Montana SU 18.33 31.18 6.38 229,650 1,115,786 2,972,678 569,866 5,078 1,333,061 10,798 275
No. Arizona U 26.00 49.50 41.50 714,697 1,243,252 4,983,986 1,056,852 5,842 359,591 18,817 265
Utah State U 40.91 23.60 39.29 480,770 1,225,426 4,757,977 1,196,037 14,035 2,031,556 18,399 259
North Dakota SU 15.00 32.50 29.25 148,543 838,442 2,434,293 486,458 5,262 242,856 9,541 255
South Dakota SU 14.00 17.80 10.60 220,783 771,022 2,026,386 488,785 3,061 69,357 8,011 253
Univ SD 11.00 18.00 10.44 325,336 514,519 1,912,968 451,854 2,611 543,555 7,707 248
2) Budget Overview NDSU Libraries FY 95-96 Pie Chart a. Appropriated FundsAppendix 1 presents a ten year summary of appropriated funds for NDSU Libraries. The current budget for NDSU Libraries is $2,448,880. This amount divides into three distinct categories: Salaries (personnel), Operating, and Equipment. At present, funds from one category cannot be transferred to another; e.g., dollars saved in salaries cannot be shifted to the operating budget, operating monies can't be shifted to either salaries or equipment, etc. However, funds may be transferred between lines within each category, e.g., money saved in supplies can be spent in data processing expenses. Over the years the percentages of these categories have shifted. Ten years ago the Libraries spent approximately the same amount for both the Operating and the Salaries portions of the budget. However as the decade progressed Operating began taking a larger percentage each year. In FY 1986 the Libraries spent roughly half (48.2%) of its budget on Operating. This year the Libraries will spend around 54.3% of its budget in this category. The Operating Budget: This is the budget used to do the work of the libraries. With it the Libraries buys books, pens, paper, journals, online catalog, and all the other things needed to "operate" the Libraries. It is divided into several broad categories.
Instructional Budget: This is the largest single part of the operating budget and accounts for a full 45.6% of the Libraries' entire budget. From this budget we buy books, journals, binding, microforms, reference databases, CD-ROMs, and the occasional audiovisual item. We also apportion part of this budget for "quick reference" database searches. The proportion we spend on each of the categories has changed over the years. Twenty years ago NDSU Libraries actually spent more for books than for serials. However, relentless serial inflation coupled with changes at the university level (e.g., added programs, expanded programs, a stronger research focus, etc.) has caused the nature of our collection to shift. We now spend far more on serials than on books. While this is typical of science oriented academic libraries (where 80% or more of the budget is often spent on serials), it is not to say we are properly funded in our book budget. In FY 1975-76 we spent about the same for books as we did twenty years later in FY 1994-95. Serials Expenditures. Journal and serials costs are assigned to individual departments on campus (see Appendix 2). When examining expenditures by college, the science oriented nature of our collection is clear. More than 50% of our serials budget is spent for departments in the College of Science and Mathematics. In fact, last year we spent 69% of our budget in just 10 departments. There are many reasons for the disparity in serials budget across departments. Most are rooted in historical precedent. During more affluent times (primarily during the 1960's and 1970's) the library purchased whichever journals faculty identified. Because some disciplines have richer journal literatures than others (thereare simply more journals published in particular fields) faculty in certain departments identified more titles for purchase. These initially unequal distributions have often been further aggravated by inflation and the unequal proliferation of journal titles and/or total pages across disciplines. As stated before, serials inflation exceeds the general inflation rate for other consumer goods, and has done so for over the past decade. Journals in certain disciplines, Physics and Chemistry for example, just plain cost more than journals in other disciplines. Quite often these titles are published by foreign firms. Only one third of the titles in the NDSU Libraries are foreign titles, yet they account for nearly two thirds of the total serials costs. Another reason for the disparities among departments is an artifact of the ascribing process itself. Certain titles assigned to a department are used by many other departments.For example, Chemical Abstracts (last year's price $15,660) is used by many disciplines but assigned to Chemistry Department's list. Serial Expenditures: Top Ten Departments Reference $128,645.91 Chemistry $125,914.97 Physics $64,674.68 Mathematics $55,052.84 Pharmacy $46,624.57 Biology/Botany $45,320.01 Biochemistry $37,535.95 Zoology $37,326.71 Microbiology/Vet Sci $29,535.98 Polymers & Coatings $24,536.49 Total $595,168.11 Serials Expenses by College Pie Chart b. Non-appropriated Funds/Internally Generated Funds (i.e., 1916, etc.)Appropriated funds comprise most of NDSU Libraries' budget, however, there are a few smaller special purpose revolving funds available. Chief among these is Fund 1916 which is the fund in which fees from photocopiers, fines, and other charges are placed. Last year (FY 95) income for this account totaled $115,656, while expenses totaled 109,948.71. See Appendix 3 for a ten-year summary of this account. Other special funds have been established for special collections or purposes (e.g. German's From Russia Fund, Cecil D. Elliott Fund, etc.) c. Tri-CollegeThis fiscal year (FY1995-1996) the Tri-College University as a whole will spend approximately 25% of it's total "instructional" budget on books.
Concordia MSU NDSU Total TCU
Binding $9,400 $9,000 $18,723 $37,123
Books $185,000 $216,000 $56,000 $457,000
Serials $140,000 $163,000 $1,006,827 $1,309,827
Ref. (Online) $4,000 $4,000
Microforms $31,000 $31,000
Non-print $30,000 $30,000
Total $364,400 $388,000 $1,116,550 $1,868,950
B. Three Funding Scenarios for NDSU Libraries1) Flat FundingAssume that the Libraries budget will remain as appropriated for FY 1995-96 and FY 1996-97. Under this scenario, long term outcomes for NDSU are
Flat funding will result in a $234,000 budget shortfall this year. The Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs will provide an additional $61,000 for this year. The remaining $173,000 shortfall will be made up by:
With continued flat funding, we can project an estimated $485,000 as compared to need shortfall next year. Actions required to meet this anticipated shortfall will include:
This budget scenario reflects the minimal additional funding needed to maintain current services in the face of rising inflationary costs. This budget pattern does not make allowance for corrections for past budget shortfalls or make any new services available to students and faculty which we have been delaying or ignoring for the past five years (such as new journal or database subscriptions or increasing book purchases). Even if funding is found which will keep pace with inflation, the following problems will remain:
This budget scenario would provide the library the opportunity to more adequately support the instructional, research, and outreach needs of NDSU. It would restore the book budget to an adequate level, allow new journal subscriptions, revitalize the collection, adequately equip and staff the library to keep pace with information technology and offer enhanced services.
C. Serials Cancellation Scenarios Any scenario other than the Growth Scenario will
eventually require the Libraries to cancel journals. There are
several methods the campus could use to accomplish these anticipated
reductions.
The campus could identify the percentage needed to meet the dollar shortfall expected and ask each department to select titles for cancellation to meet this percentage. This is the method used last fiscal year when each department was asked to identify titles to equal 10% of their total serials budget. The chief drawback to this method is that
several departments do not have very many titles left to cut.
Some departments entire journal list consists of a package subscription
that includes several titles. NDSU would pay more by breaking
up the subscription package and paying for titles individually.
NDSU could cancel the most expensive titles regardless
of title, department, or current usage. This approach has the
least impact in terms of total number of titles dropped. A quick
look at our titles shows we could reduce our serials by $300,000
by canceling the most expensive 76 titles. However, these cancellations
would include some of our most used and important research titles.
NDSU could cancel titles with the highest cost per use. This would focus the cancellation on titles with fewer uses and so perhaps cause less functional impact. These would also be titles most appropriately obtained through ILL or commercial document delivery services. Subject Librarians at NDSU Libraries have prepared a list of titles under such a scenario and a tentative listing is available both online and at the reserve desk . This list includes titles with a subscription cost higher than $500 and a cost-per-use greater than $20. A total of 197 titles are identified so far, resulting in a reduction of $231,301 in serial subscriptions. The most seriously affected academic units are listed below. College Amount Number Titles Proportion Total Science and Mathematics $157,297 132 68% Agriculture $ 29,060 27 13% Engineering $ 14,912 10 6% Other $ 30,032 28 13%4) Low Priority Programs The Committee feels the most rational approach may be to target cancellations based on a prioritization of academic programs. The program prioritization needed, however, must be provided by the University, not the Libraries. D. Specific Recommendations1a) Aggressively Implement Document Delivery NDSU Libraries should immediately explore the use
of document delivery (both by electronic and traditional means)
as a substitute for serials ownership. In 1992 Louisiana State
University, after years of 10-12% annual serials cancellations,
initiated a bold experiment. They canceled $485,000 worth of serials
(representing about 25% of their total serials budget at the time)
and implemented mediated document delivery services using CARL
Reveal/Uncover. That year 2,092 items were ordered via CARL from
a total of 936 canceled titles at a cost of $25,000: a first-year
savings of $460,000! The University of South Dakota has recently
implemented a similar program, with significant savings. Following
this lead, we recommend that a sizable portion of the NDSU serials
budget be earmarked for cancellation, to be replaced by providing
faculty and students with electronic document delivery services.
We further recommend that the savings realized through implementing
document delivery should remain with the Libraries, being applied
toward improving and maintaining the core collection of owned
books and journals, provide additional and/or improved database
tools for access to information, and defray the cost of document
delivery (copyright costs, vendor contracts, equipment, etc.).
The process used to identify journals for cancellation will be
similar to that used by LSU, and will involve substantial faculty
input.
Even if substantial cost savings (which are not
a certainty)are initially realized by shifting to document delivery
from serials ownership, the economic realities of commercial publication
dictate that these savings will diminish over time as delivery
costs escalate. Therefore, we recommend that an effort be made
to prioritize academic programs at NDSU. We take as axiomatic
that the NDSU Libraries collections should reflect the program
and research needs of the University. It is not (and should not
be) the responsibility or prerogative of the Director of Libraries
to make academic programmatic decisions for NDSU campus. This
is, however, precisely what occurs when the Libraries are forced
to make serials cancellations. NDSU faculty and administration
need to provide leadership and direction in serials cancellations
projects, perhaps by establishing an emergency program review
committee to prioritize programs. The outcome must be some priority
list to inform serials cancellation (or subscription) decisions.
Some portion of the $50/semester Technology Fee
(which is estimated to generate some $500,000/year in revenue
for NDSU) should be earmarked for maintaining or enhancing those
Library facilities which are technologically intensive (e.g.,
CARL Reveal/UnCover, PALS online catalog, CD ROM databases, local
area networks, World Wide Web pages, computer workstations, etc.)
and which have a direct impact on students.
Some immediate budgetary relief can be realized
by allowing the Libraries to assess modest fees for various services,
such as ILL. UND has already implemented a $2/request fee. While
this fee doesn't cover the actual cost of delivery (approximately
$17/item), it will serve to reduce the volume of requests (currently
22,000/year), thus reducing current expenditure, as well as generating
perhaps $15-20,000 in new revenue.
It is generally true that the most expensive journals
the Libraries purchase are those required by the research community
at NDSU. Therefore it may not be unreasonable to request that
a portion of grant indirect costs should be diverted to the Libraries
in order to pay for these research journals.
Funds should be found to increase the Libraries funding rate to near 6% of total campus budget (this is the ACRL target) up from present levels of 2.1-2.4% -- or at least up to 3.4%, which is the average for peer research libraries. Perhaps a special request should be made to the
legislature on behalf of all NDUS university libraries. The drawback
with one-time infusions of funds is they do not serve the library's
need for a stable (or at least predictable) budget in order to
make rational collection management decisions.
NDSU Libraries has been a leader in promoting cooperative ventures between various academic entities and remains committed to this concept. Past and present cooperative activities have involved the Tri-College University and have been and remain very beneficial to NDSU's students, faculty, and staff. A noteworthy achievement in Fall 1995 is NDSU Libraries cooperative arrangement with the University of North Dakota Medical School Library to provide MEDLINE access to a larger user base at a lower total cost to the state of North Dakota. NDSU Libraries is pursuing similar arrangments with other NDUS institutuions. The benefits which are envisioned to accrue
to NDSU Libraries through focussing on document delivery instead
of (or in conjunction with) document ownership (Recommendation
1a) can be realized on a larger scale through system-wide implementation.
A legal opinion should be sought to determine if journals and
other information products could be purchased or licensed under
the auspices of the North Dakota University System, rather than
to the multiple component institutions. If single subscriptions
to costly materials can legally be shared by the component institutions
of the entire NDUS, then economies of scale can be realized by
reduced total expenditures, centralized processing (cataloging,
acquisitions, etc.), storage and delivery of such materials. The
NDUS library could make materials available to clients at component
institutions via either traditional ILL means, or by delivering
scanned documents electronically as high-resolution bit-mapped
images. The savings realized by increased efficiency and centralization
could be applied towards establishing, maintaining and upgrading
electronic document delivery equipment at the component institutions.
Ultimately, lasting relief from serials inflation
must involve the removal of the "middle man", the commercial
publisher, from the process of academic publication. A number
of journals, e.g., The Astrophysical Journal, Psycoloqy,
PostModern Culture, (for a list of peer-reviewed electronic
journals see: http://www.w3.org/hypertext/DataSource/journals.html)
are currently experimenting with on-line electronic publication,
particularly on the World Wide Web. Electronic publication has
a number of attractive features: it permits reproduction of high-resolution
graphic images, 24-bit color, animation, and enables the use of
informative hot-links, both within a document and to sites beyond
the document itself (e.g., to the author's homepage, to related
publications, to files containing raw numerical data, etc.). It
would be a worthwhile investment to work toward establishing an
NDSU Electronic Press, and to encourage faculty to publish (and/or
to take leadership roles by promoting and initiating new electronic
peer-reviewed journals within their fields of expertise). The
new ND-EPSCoR supported Journal of Main Group Chemistry
could, for example, be encouraged to publish electronically in
this manner. Efforts of this kind would surely enhance NDSU's
prestige and may ultimately save money. The Libraries and ITS
could play the role of facilitators in this process.
The University Senate Library Committee membership
should include a permanent member from Information Technology
Services. The addition of a staff member from ITS to the Senate
Library Committee is a proposal that has evolved out of the committee's
discussions this year. The primary role of this individual would
be to serve as a resource person for factual information regarding
the current campus infrastructure and services, as well as planned
developments for the campus, the NDUS, and HECN. In addition,
this individual would serve as a liaison to ITS to facilitate
communication of proposed developments impacting both units' programs
and services.
a) Library Administration and staff should be encouraged and rewarded for engaging in efforts directed toward the procurement of extramural grant support (e.g., from NSF) aimed at infrastructure development. b) University colleges, departments, and organizations
could be encouraged to pool their resources with those of the
NDSU Libraries to purchase needed information resources and services.
For example, an academic department may partner with the Libraries
to subscribe to a needed bibliographic database. The Libraries
should also be supported in their efforts to establish similar
partnerships with organizations and businesses in the region.
If particular partnerships are considered to be in the best interests
of NDSU, the Libraries could contract with these offcampus organizations
to provide collections and information services and benefit the
University and the contracting organization.
The University Senate Library Committee, in conjunction with the Library Administration, should draft mutually agreeable policy guidelines related to revenues and expenditures of Fund 1916. E. Glossary of TermsACRL: Association of College and Research Libraries CARL: A computerized network of systems and services developed by the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries. Besides providing access more than 50 library catalogs, CARL developed and provides access to UnCover, a multidiscipline database and document delivery system. CD-ROM: Compact Disc-Read Only Memory. NDSU Libraries has hundreds of CD-ROMs. Most are in the reference department. CISTI: Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information. A possible source for document delivery items. CISTI guarantees same day information on orders placed by noon central time. They have over 20,000 current titles including journals by SpringerVerlag and Elsevier. FILE AUT: Library of Congress Subject Headings. Standard Library of Congress subject headings with synonyms and cross references which assist finding the appropriate subject headings(s) for the topic being researched. FILE BCL: Books for College Libraries. The electronic version of Books for College Libraries, arranged by Library of Congress classification system with an author and subject index. Designed to be used as a selection aid. FILE BUS: Business Periodicals Index. Combined file of Business Index and The Wall Street Journal. Business Index indexes over 800 business, management, and trade publications and The Wall Street Journal. Business-related articles from an additional 3,000 journals and newspapers are also included. FILE COP: Company Profiles. Company Profiles contains brief information on over 145,000 companies, including address, type of company, number of employees, revenue, administrative personnel, and SIC code. Updated annually. FILE ERIC: A combined file of Journals in Education and Resources in Education. Journals in Education indexes articles from more than 700 periodicals of interest to various segments of the education profession. Resources in Education indexes significant and timely education research reports. All documents indexed are available on microfiche. Those not available at the NDSU Libraries can be borrowed from the Moorhead State University Library through interlibrary loan. FILE GEN: General Magazine Index. A combined file of Magazine Index and Expanded Academic Index, and New York Times Index. Expanded Academic Index provides indexing of more than 1500 scholarly and general interest publications. Magazine Index indexes more than 400 popular American and Canadian magazines. Useful for answering general reference questions, and provides a valuable adjunct in areas such as market research, public relations, government relations, journalism, food and nutrition, and the social sciences. FILE GPO: Government Publications. Bibliographic citations to federal government publications, including books, reports, studies, serials, and maps covering a wide range of topics. FILE MUL: Minnesota Union List of Serials. Contains serial titles and holdings of libraries in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, current as of February 1, 1994. Libraries are identified by their three letter MULS symbol preceded by a code designating state. The MULS symbol is not necessarily the same as the symbol used to identify libraries in their local online catalogs. Enter HELP MU for a list of library names and symbols. ILL: Interlibrary Loan. IPEDS: Integrated Postsecondary Educational Data System MnSCU/PALS: Acronym for Minnesota State Colleges and Universities/Project for Automated Systems. The online catalog used by North Dakota State University and over 70 libraries in Minnesota. In addition to being the chief access point to the Libraries' collection, it provides bridges to other libraries and indexing/abstracting services (some include the full text of approximately 1500 magazines and journals). MnSCU/PALS is maintained through Mankato State University. Annual membership includes telecommunication, usage, and storage costs. MINITEX: Acronym for MINnesota Information and Technology Exchange, the Minnesota interlibrary loan brokerage service that is a regional (North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota) agreement which allows the sharing of library materials among libraries in the three states. OCLC: Acronym for Online Computer Library Center, a national library data base that is the world's largest and most comprehensive data base of bibliographic information. The records of 23 libraries in North Dakota are available on OCLC. ODIN: An acronym for the Online Dakota Information Network, a PALS statewide data base that allows access to collections of 26 academic, public, medical, legal, and state agency libraries in North Dakota. The ODIN system is maintained through the University of North Dakota and is supported through member charges and state appropriations to the University of North Dakota. UnCover: A multidiscipline database and document delivery service developed by CARL. Every article in the database is available for fax delivery within 24 hours. An UnCover user can order an article online, indicate the fax number to which it should be sent and charge the fee to his own VISA or MasterCard
Appendix 1: Appropriated FundsAppendix 2: Instructional Summary -- 1994/1995 NDSU Libraries Instructional Expenditures by College and DepartmentAppendix 3: Fund 1916 |
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Last Updated: March 11, 2008