40% of [UK] university libraries plan cuts to book and journal purchases next year.
Academics should brace themselves for "severe" cuts in access to new books and journals in the next academic year as higher costs caused by the fall in the value of the pound put libraries under pressure.
Times Higher Education reported in January that the drop in the pound's value was having a "crippling effect" on the budgets of UK university libraries, which faced huge increases in subscriptions costs for research journals from the US and elsewhere in Europe.
Now a new survey of 38 university libraries conducted by the Research Information Network (RIN) reveals just how serious the situation is.
Preliminary findings presented to Times Higher Education show that although the current academic year has been "financially challenging", it is in 2009-10 that the pinch will really be felt.
The survey shows that nearly 40 per cent of libraries plan cuts to books and serial purchases from next year. One in five plans to cancel one or more so-called big deals with publishing houses to access bundles of journals online. A single bundle can contain hundreds of titles.
Michael Jubb, director of the RIN, said that many university libraries had already overspent in the current academic year and some had been forced to cut budgets. But it was 2009-10 that would be the "much bigger problem".
"We are facing the prospect of significant reductions in access to a wide range of journals and severe cuts in the availability of books ... which could do severe damage to research and teaching in UK universities," he said.
"In some libraries, the extra costs for journal licences that they will face next year, simply as a result of the fall in the value of the pound, exceed the total of their current budgets for buying books." ...
PS: I've argued that the recession will harm OA and TA alike, but will strengthen the case for OA.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/22/2009 03:53:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
