Primarily due to journal price increases, the University Libraries were once again facing a $1.3 million shortfall in the 2018 collections budget.
Thanks to our University Administration, we will be able to avoid a major cut to our journal subscriptions this year.
With annual price increases far exceeding inflation, increasing funds are needed each year just to maintain our existing subscriptions.
Scholarly publishing is big business. Some of these companies are as large as Delta Airlines, and more profitable than Apple. Publisher profits in excess of 30% a year are not uncommon.
Read more about how some researchers are making strides to create a fair and sustainable way to publish their work, and how several of our own University of Missouri faculty are publishing in open access journals, allowing their research to be accessed freely.