University of Pennsylvania Cuts 2,255 Subscriptions
Jesse Rogers, As costs rise, library cuts journals, The Daily Pennsylvanian, October 20, 2005. Excerpt:
Students combing the stacks at Van Pelt Library may notice they have a little extra breathing room. The library has cut 2,255 journal subscriptions from its 2004-05 holdings, as journal prices have increased faster than the library’s budget. But the size of the materials budget — $13.1 million allotted for books, journals, magazines, periodicals, films and electronic resources — is not to blame, library officials said. Rather, officials blame big publishing companies, which they say have raised prices as the companies have bought up academic journals over the last two decades. In 1993, journals accounted for 64 percent of the materials budget. This number has increased to almost 70 percent in the 2005 materials budget. Publishing giant Reed Elsevier claims 18 percent of the market in science, technology and medical journals. An annual subscription to the chemistry journal Tetrahedron, published by Elsevier, costs the library $31,600. The Brown University library system has also criticized price increases. However, it has not had to cancel subscriptions since the early 1990s, as its materials budget has kept pace with journals’ price increases. The 2005 Brown materials budget stands at $5 million, of which 66 percent is devoted to journals. As research libraries across the nation decry price increases, Penn’s library system is calling for reform through its Winning Independence Web site. Linked to the library system’s Web site this September, the site encourages professors to be active on journals’ editorial boards and to push for fair pricing policies. At the heart of the uproar over pricing is frustration — on the part of the library and some professors — with publishers’ restrictive copy agreements. Many journal publishers require faculty members to sign over their copyright as a condition for publication. This prevents professors from submitting published journal articles to online archives such as Penn’s [OA repository] Scholarly Commons, which is one way the library can increase its holdings in the face of a limited budget.
[Open Access News, 10/20/2005)
