This information is over 2 years old. Information was current at time of publication.{"id":2054,"date":"2009-05-18T14:02:45","date_gmt":"2009-05-18T19:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/?p=2054"},"modified":"2009-05-18T14:02:45","modified_gmt":"2009-05-18T19:02:45","slug":"directors-reflections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/directors-reflections\/","title":{"rendered":"Director's Reflections… Libraries in the Economic Downturn"},"content":{"rendered":"

$\"barbara-2009-altered\"$ Like most other programs in the University and the health center, HSLS has been adversely affected by the ongoing global economic crisis.\u00a0 Budget support has declined, leading to difficult decisions about collections and services.<\/p>\n

We are not alone in this situation.\u00a0 A recent \u201chard times\u201d survey by the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) found that nearly all of the 106 respondents have already experienced or expect to experience budget cuts in the current fiscal year.\u00a0 The majority expects additional reductions in the coming year.<\/p>\n

Health sciences libraries have been especially hard hit by disproportionate price increases for STM (science-technology-medical) journals that have eroded purchasing power over the past several years.\u00a0 The problem is compounded by the fact that thousands of biomedical research journals are produced by a few \u201cmega-publishers\u201d who bundle numerous titles together in large, online subscription packages.\u00a0 Many libraries are concerned that reduced funding may force them to drop important titles from smaller publishers because they are locked into multi-year deals with the mega-publishers.<\/p>\n

In the past several months, several influential library organizations have issued statements, aimed at scholarly publishers, about the impact of the global economic crisis on libraries.\u00a0 These include the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC)<\/a> and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL)<\/a>.\u00a0 This month, AAHSL and the Medical Library Association (MLA) jointly issued a statement<\/a> about collections in health sciences libraries.\u00a0 These documents urge publishers and vendors to partner with libraries in negotiating flexible licensing terms supportive of continued access to as much content as possible.\u00a0 They further advocate, not only for price stabilization, but also for real price reductions driven by operational efficiencies, increased reliance on electronic-only publication to reduce overhead for print production, and a wider range of options for contract terms.<\/p>\n

HSLS is actively working with vendors and publishers to reduce costs wherever possible.\u00a0 We carefully monitor usage and cost data to ensure that the resources we offer are the most appropriate for our diverse user population.\u00a0\u00a0 We also continue to develop innovative interfaces to help you take advantage of our many resources and services.\u00a0 And\u2014as always\u2014we welcome your comments and suggestions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"