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The use of online journals at
UBC is increasing rapidly as researchers appreciate the access from
their offices, homes, and labs.
Regarding the use of print journals, the Library has only partial figures;
however, photocopy use has gone down by 7% and 7.8% in the last two years.
Since the Library's photocopiers are chiefly used to copy articles from
our non-circulating journal collection, the number of photocopies made
is a fair reflection of print journal usage. It appears that users are
moving from using print to going online. The University of California
is doing an extensive study comparing the use of print journals and online
journals on its campuses and is finding that users overwhelming use the
online versions: http://www.ucop.edu/cmi/data_charts_usage.html.
Along with the acceptance of online journals, the scholarly communication
process is changing. The Library wants to work with you in making further
progress in new directions. Currently, commercial publishers dominate
the market in the publication of research journals; six commercial publishers
publish 37% of ISI rated journals. [Morgan Stanley, September 2002] You
will recognize their names: Elsevier, Kluwer, Blackwell, Bertelsmann (Springer
and others), Wiley, and Taylor & Francis. Until a few years ago, some
of these had double digit annual price increases. Mergers undertaken by
these publishers caused prices to go up. A large part of the Library's
collections budget goes to these few publishers. Fortunately, there are
now numerous non-commercial initiatives chipping away at this monopoly.
You, as researchers, can assist in the following ways to expand scholarly
expression and to move it away from remaining a commercial monopoly:
- Working with your professional societies to encourage them to keep
the costs of their journals down.
- Putting pressure on publishers of journals that you edit, especially
those from commercial publishers, to keep costs reasonable.
- Seriously considering publications in not-for-profit online journals,
such as BioMedCentral, as
valid in reviews for hiring, tenure, and promotion.
- Starting your own online
nonprofit journal.
- Cooperating with others to establish a UBC institutional repository
(digital collection that captures and preserves the intellectual output
of a university community):
- Other scholarly publishing initiatives.
Journal costs are a large reason why the scholarly communication process
has to change. For a graph of the "serials crisis" across North American
universities, see http://www.arl.org/stats/arlstat/graphs/2002/2002t2.html.
Annual increases for journals have been notorious, often in the double
digits, and in the past years, the Library's collections budget simply
could not keep up, with the result that the Library had major cancellations.
Between 1992 and 2003, the Library cancelled 6,800 titles, worth $2,750,000
dollars at the time of cancellation. The good news is
- Some of these discontinued titles have been re-instated in the last
several years as part of online journal packages, along with newly established
titles that were relevant to UBC for which we couldn't afford subscriptions.
- If the Library had not discontinued those subscriptions, at the conservative
estimate of a 5% increase per year, those titles would now cost us over
$3.5M, and in order to stay within our collections budget, we would
have to eliminate half of our spending on both monographs and electronic
resources.
- Annual increases for journals in recent years have moderated, and
the Library has been able to maintain a balanced budget for monographs,
journals, and online resources. In 2002/03 print serial increases came
in at 7%.
- This cancellation is unique in that it will not result in loss of
access to content.
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