E. Diane Johnson

home Budget, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library Final impact on the Health Sciences Library of the 1.2 million dollar collections cut

Final impact on the Health Sciences Library of the 1.2 million dollar collections cut

By E. Diane Johnson   Posted in Budget J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library
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As previously announced, as part of the University Libraries $1.2 million collections cut currently underway, the “big deal” journal packages from Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, and Sage were evaluated and renegotiated. 

That work is now complete, achieving an additional  savings of about $588,000 to count toward the collections cut.   This is the latest is a series of cuts affecting the Health Sciences Library collections. 

 

What do these cuts mean for the health sciences? 

Delayed access for articles in over 200 journals

As a result of these cuts, instant article access will not be available for over $300,000 in health sciences journals from Wiley, Springer and Sage.  While we will retain online access to back issues for the cancelled titles, articles from 2017 forward will need to be requested via Interlibrary loan.  Most articles arrive within two business days.

 

 Pay more, keep less

Instant access will be maintained to all of the Elsevier titles.  However,  in order to balance the budget, 90 titles  are being converted from purchase to rental access.  Seven of these  titles are health sciences journals.

Despite the loss of permanent archival access to articles in these 90 journals from 2017 forward, the total cost of the Elsevier package  is still over $1 million dollars a year, and will continue to increase by $50,000+ per  year for each of the next 3 years under the terms of the new contract.

 Alternate online access

Despite being removed from their respective packages, we will maintain complete online access to current issues for the following titles through alternate routes:

Clinical Rehabilitation (Sage) 

The Neurohospitalist (Sage)  

Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics (Wiley)

 

What can you do?

Hang on to your author rights when you publish. YOU could be our organization’s best defense against a publishing model in which university faculty give away their work over free, or even pay to have it published, and the libraries must then purchase it back from them at ever-increasing prices.

home J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, Resources and Services Changes to journal packages from Wiley, Springer, Sage and Elsevier – impact on the Health Sciences

Changes to journal packages from Wiley, Springer, Sage and Elsevier – impact on the Health Sciences

By E. Diane Johnson   Posted in J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library Resources and Services
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Negotiations have been completed with Wiley, Springer, Sage and Elsevier on the journal packages that we license with these publishers, reducing our total spend by $550,000, which will be applied to the $1.2 shortfall in the MU Libraries collections budget.  The cancellation decisions were informed by usage, cost, and user feedback.

 

As previously noted, these cuts are in addition to the $150,000 cuts already made from the Health Sciences Library resource budget.

 

Delayed access

As a result of these cuts, instant article access will not be available for these health sciences titles from Wiley, Springer and Sage.  While we will retain online access to back issues for the cancelled titles, articles from 2017 forward will need to be requested via Interlibrary loan.  Most articles arrive within two business days.

 

Alternate online access

Despite being removed from their respective packages, we will maintain complete online access to current issues for the following titles through alternate routes:

Clinical Rehabilitation (Sage)

The Neurohospitalist (Sage)

Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics (Wiley)

 

Pay more, keep less

Instant access will be maintained to all of the Elsevier titles.  However,  in order to balance the budget, 90 titles, amounting to about $300,000 in subscriptions,  are being converted from purchase to rental access.  Seven of these  titles are health sciences journals.

Despite the loss of permanent archival access to articles in these 90 journals from 2017 forward, the total cost of the Elsevier package  is still over $1 million dollars a year, and will continue to increase by $50,000+ per  year for each of the next 3 years under the terms of the new contract.

 

We will be reviewing our Oxford University and University of Chicago journal packages during the spring semester of 2017 as steps towards preparing for an anticipated cancellation process in FY2018.

These cuts are especially difficult for us in the Health Sciences realm, since prior to this reduction our collections spending lagged a half of a million dollars below our peer health sciences libraries, and was only about one half the amount our aspirational peer health sciences libraries have available to spend on their collections.

Cuts this deep will undoubtedly be felt.  We will continue to monitor usage and impact,  and to address collection needs to the extent that our budget allows.

home Gateway Carousel Journalism, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, Journalism Library, Resources and Services Next time you publish: claim your rights

Next time you publish: claim your rights

By E. Diane Johnson   Posted in Gateway Carousel Journalism J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library Journalism Library Resources and Services
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Your article has been accepted for publication in a journal and, like your colleagues, you want it to have the widest possible distribution and impact in the scholarly community. In the past, this required print publication. Today you have other options, like online archiving, but the publication agreement you’ll likely encounter will actually prevent broad distribution of your work.

You would never knowingly keep your research from a readership that could benefit from it, but signing a restrictive publication agreement limits your scholarly universe and lessens your impact as an author.

Why? According to the traditional publication agreement, all rights —including copyright — go to the journal. You probably want to include sections of your article in later works. You might want to give copies to your class or distribute it among colleagues. And you likely want to place it on your Web page or in an online repository if you had the choice. These are all ways to give your research wide exposure and fulfill your goals as a scholar, but they are inhibited by the traditional agreement. If you sign on the publisher’s dotted line, is there any way to retain these critical rights?

Yes. The SPARC Author Addendum is a legal instrument that modifies the publisher’s agreement and allows you to keep key rights to your articles. Learn more.

This open access message has been brought to you by SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. 

home Budget, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, Resources and Services Some Taylor & Francis journal prices increasing as much as 25% in 2017

Some Taylor & Francis journal prices increasing as much as 25% in 2017

By E. Diane Johnson   Posted in Budget J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library Resources and Services
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Pricing for 2017 subscriptions is starting to come in, and once again, their prices are increasing. These journals are among a list of 21 subscriptions that will cost the University Libraries $6000 more in 2017 than a year ago. That’s an increase between 15-25%. 

Meanwhile, US inflation for 2017 is projected to be about 2%; nowhere near the average increase of journal subscriptions featured in the list. 

Many disciplines are impacted by these subscription price increases, not just the health sciences:

journals_increaseing_over_15_in_2017_revised2

home Budget, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library $101,000 cut from Health Sciences Library journal subscriptions in 2017

$101,000 cut from Health Sciences Library journal subscriptions in 2017

By E. Diane Johnson   Posted in Budget J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library
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The Health Sciences Library journal list has been updated to show the latest cancellation decisions. A total of $101,116 was cut from these subscriptions under the control of the Health Sciences Library – a cut of about 20%.

As previously announced,  book purchasing will also be drastically curtailed this year as a further cost saving measure.

Subject and title lists of journals being cancelled across all the campus libraries  have also been posted and will be updated as needed throughout the fall semester.

Contract negotiations are underway with Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, Sage and Oxford, and we will share information on the future of those journal packages as it becomes available.

Read more about the budget challenges facing the Health Sciences Library 

 

home Budget, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, Resources and Services Additional details about $150,000 Health Sciences Library collections cut

Additional details about $150,000 Health Sciences Library collections cut

By E. Diane Johnson   Posted in Budget J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library Resources and Services
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You probably have already heard about the cut to the MU Libraries Collections planned for the coming year .  Here’s what we know as of now about what it will mean for the Health Sciences Library:

Our collections allocation will be reduced about $150,000 compared to last year – a 20% reduction.

Meeting this target will require us to:

  • Drastically reduce our book spending to only $21,000 in new purchases in FY2017.
  • Cancel $100,000 in Health Sciences Library journal subscriptions.  These cuts will be made based on a combination of factors, including:
    • Usage and cost per use.
    • Journals with subscription prices which far outstrip normal inflation are getting special scrutiny. Some examples
    • To the extent possible, we will try to maintain subscriptions to the journals you publish in, cite, or have identified as core to your work.
  • This $100,000 cut must be taken from the $577,000 in subscriptions under the direct financial control of the Health Sciences Library.
  • These cuts are in addition to reductions to University Libraries centrally-administered journal subscription packages from Elsevier, Wiley, Sage, Oxford and Springer.  Any cuts to journals in those packages will be in addition to, not in the place of the $100,00 journal cut facing the Health Sciences Library. 

 

A list of all journal subscriptions under review, with prices and publishers listed, is now live on the Health Sciences Library web site, along with additional details about the budget challenges facing our library. The list will be a continually updated with cancellation information until we reach our budget reduction goal.

 

Please let us know if you have questions and concerns.

 

home Budget, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, Resources and Services Health Sciences Library collection allocation reduced $150,000 for FY17

Health Sciences Library collection allocation reduced $150,000 for FY17

By E. Diane Johnson   Posted in Budget J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library Resources and Services
Posted on

You probably have already heard about the cut to the MU Libraries Collections planned for the coming year .  Here’s what we know as of now about what it will mean for the Health Sciences Library.

Our collections allocation will be reduced about $150,000 compared to last year – a 20% reduction.

Even after drastically curtailing our book spending , we will still need to cut around $100,000 from the journal subscriptions managed by our library.

Also subject to the 20% cut are the centrally administered journal packages from Elsevier, Wiley, Sage, Oxford and Springer.  It will be some time before the cut lists for those packages are finalized.

But any cuts to journals in  those packages will be in addition to, not in the place of the $100,00 journal cut facing the Health Sciences Library.

The same goes for the electronic resources which are purchased at the 4-campus level via the MERLIN consortium.

We will share more information as it becomes available.

home Budget, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library Grim news for Health Sciences Library book budget in FY17

Grim news for Health Sciences Library book budget in FY17

By E. Diane Johnson   Posted in Budget J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library
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In order to address the $1.2M collections shortfall faced by the campus libraries, the Health Sciences Library will only have approximately $20,000 in total book funds available in FY2017.

This is approximately $40,000 less than we normally spend on books in a year. 

We will also lose access to roughly 3000 online clinical books July 1 when the MOBIUS consortium eMO subscription ends, as there is no money to continue it.

The only way to address this shortfall would be to cut even deeper into our journal budget, where we are already tasked with cutting about $71,000 in subscriptions. 

We plan to continue buying books on demand to the extent that we are able, given our reduced circumstances.  Once the book fund is exhausted, we will keep the requests on file to buy when money is available again. 

In the meantime, you can continue to request books on interlibrary loan at no cost to you. 

home J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, Zalk Veterinary Medical Library Seeking your input on Springer, Sage and Oxford journals

Seeking your input on Springer, Sage and Oxford journals

By E. Diane Johnson   Posted in J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library Zalk Veterinary Medical Library
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Faced with the prospect of cutting about 20% of our collections budget and having reviewed the subscriptions from the largest publishers, the campus libraries are beginning a  review our Springer, Sage and Oxford journal subscriptions, which account for close to $700,000/year of the library collection budget.

Based on past usage patterns and an analysis of alternate access to some of these titles, we will be trimming our subscription spending with these publishers by substituting article-based access and interlibrary loan for the  journals that are less used by our campus community, or duplicated elsewhere.

You’ve already “voted” with your usage, but if you wish to offer additional comments on these titles, you will find a list of low use titles in Health & Biological Sciences here.

Or, you can review the entire list of 2,600 titles if you prefer.

home Budget, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library Update on Collections Cuts

Update on Collections Cuts

By E. Diane Johnson   Posted in Budget J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library
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Thank you for your input in the review of some of our low usage journals this spring.

  • 992 people participated in the review.
  • 352 of those users were from Health Sciences disciplines.
  • We received feedback on all 600+ journals on the list, and this information will be very useful to have in the upcoming journal package  negotiations.
  • You can view the responses here.

It will be some time before we know how much this review will help to address what now appears will be a $1,200,000 shortfall in the collections budget.

Since this shortfall represents 20% of the collection budget for the campus libraries, we have been asked  to prepare for a 20% cut across all of our collections.

That will amount to around $77,000 for the Health Sciences Library. 

Sadly, most of this will have to come from our journal subscriptions, since we had already pared back our book spending in 2011 when we started purchasing books only on demand.

We will do our best to minimize the impact of these cuts, but they will be painful because they are so deep. In many cases, we will have to settle for access rather than ownership of needed material – hardly a sound or sustainable strategy for building or maintaining a research library collection.