HighlightsBudget and Planning Highlights
This website gives special attention to the challenges created by collection managers by an explosion of information occuring even as our resources to acquire materials diminish. For a look at the background against which these challenges are playing themselves out, see a the UC Berkeley Library's Collection Themes, formulated and adopted by the Library in 2003.
- Discuss them with your library liaison.
- Tell us what you think.
The immediate problem
- The cost of building library collections is rising faster than collections budgets. This largely is due to the annual rate of inflation on library materials. It is due, as well, to a burgeoning of new information — to a dramatic rise in the number and specialization of journals, the availability of full text and searchable electronic versions of items we previously only had in print, and the emergence of new genres of digital content.
- The three-year, $4.6 million supplement to the Library's collection budget made by Chancellor Berdahl in 1998 dramatically helped the Library to rebuild collections after losses incurred during the 1990s. Part of this money was intended as a hedge against three years of inflation. Through very efficient use of these new funds, the Library has been able to protect our purchasing power over not three, but six years. This protection, however, has now run out.
- UC Berkeley Library collections reduced expenses to mitigate a $700,000 budget deficit for 2003-2004, $600,000 in 2004-2005, and $500,000 in 2005-2006. This problem will recur until new permanent money becomes available to match inflationary increases.
- The Library has adopted a central strategy to protect unique material rather than duplicating the same material in different formats. We applied this principal in a new way during 2003-2004 by dropping local print subscriptions to titles we also licensed for electronic access. The California Digital Library (CDL) has bolstered this strategy by arranging to build a one-copy, shared, print archive, allowing UC campuses to rely on electronic access to journals with print archive backup.
- We will be making other cuts to serials and monograph budgets to make up the balance of the deficit.
- We welcome input from faculty and other UC Berkeley researchers.
The longer term
As is true with all institutions of higher education, UC Berkeley needs to find a sustainable financial model for providing access to and archiving information in support of our instructional and research programs.
The Library can continue to manage resources wisely by
- continuing to pursue consortial purchase agreements, enabling us to negotiate lower prices due to larger orders.
- enhancing cooperative collection programs.
- working with CDL and other academic institutions to expand and improve our already substantial methods for timely and efficient resource sharing with other UC campuses and with other institutions throughout the world.
- working with CDL to ensure the archival longevity of both print and electronic materials.
- working with CDL and other UC Libraries to build a shared print archive enabling UC campuses to rely on a single print copy of those titles for which we have ubiquitous electronic access.
The academy will have to help by
- taking full advantage of electronic resources and reducing our reliance on print when appropriate.
- identifying for the Library the top priorities for on-campus collections.
- rethinking campus reliance on the current, unsustainable model of scholarly communication, that requires the Library to purchase from publishers the product of UC-faculty research, often at exorbitant prices.
