Department Representative Questions

1. What are my primary responsibilities as department representative?
2. Who can I contact if I have any questions or need help?
3. Should I also use the Faculty Journal Needs system to indicate my essential journals?
4. Can I see who from my department has already indicated their essential journals using the Faculty Journal Needs system?
5. How do I submit the departmentally ranked journal needs for my department?

Answers

1. Why do we need to cut journals?

Multi-year contracts with journal publishers caps the journal inflation rate at 4%, when the industry average is 6–8%. Even with the negotiated low inflation rate, our budget has only increased at an average of 0.7% since 2010. Because of that combination of factors, we no longer have the means to sign multi-year deals.

Journal packages are not available outside of multi-year deals so we must now subscribe to journals individually. Despite journal packages giving us access to nearly all of the publisher’s journals at a steep discount, we can no longer fiscally sustain packages.

If we take Springer journals as an example, for the same cost we are paying for the package, instead of over 2,400 journals we would only be able to subscribe to around 190 titles. To save money, we would need to cut more than that though. We also anticipate an increased need for Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery so we need to cut even more to accommodate paying for those higher costs as well.

2. What is the timeline for any cancellations?

October – November 23, 2016

Deadline for you to submit your list of essential and helpful journals to journalneeds.lib.byu.edu

November 30 – December 31, 2016

Your department representative submits a departmentally ranked list of journals to journalneeds.lib.byu.edu

January – February 2017

Librarians will review the lists, study usage data, compare costs, and communicate with department representatives, faculty, and students from across campus

March 2017

Librarians will distribute a list of proposed retentions and cancellations for your input

April 2017

Librarians will finalize the list of cancellations and retentions based on your input balanced with other needs across campus

May – August 2017

Librarians will begin working with publishers to initiate the cancellation process

September 1, 2017

All cancellations and retentions must be submitted to publishers by September 1st.

December 31, 2017

Access to cancelled materials from January 2018 forward will cease; we will continue to have some access to material subscribed to prior to January 2018

3. What do you need me to do?

We are requesting that all faculty submit a list of essential and helpful journals to the library before November 23, 2016. You may do so by logging in to our Faculty Journal Needs system. If you are a department representative, we need additional help from you. Please see our Department Representative page for more information.

We need to identify all the journals that are necessary for teaching and research across campus, regardless of publisher. As you add titles to the system, please also consider the needs of your graduate and undergraduate students, accreditation requirements, learning outcomes, and professional development.

4. How will you use the data I give you?

We will use the list of essential journals as one data point in the retention and cancellation decision-making process. Department representatives will also be compiling a departmentally ranked list of essential and helpful journals that will provide us with additional guidance.

There are many considerations that have to be made when deciding on which journals to cancel and which to retain. We hope to be able to provide access to many of the journals listed as essential. However, we know we will not be able to accommodate all needs. For cancelled titles, we are committed to doing our best to serve you through Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery.

5. Who can I contact if I have questions?

Please contact your subject librarian if you have any questions or concerns. Alternatively, you may contact Rebecca Boughan, Electronic Resources and Licensing Specialist: rebecca.walton@byu.edu, (801) 422-3670.

6. Which journals will be impacted?

We do not know yet which journals will be impacted because our multi-year deals with publishers come up for renewal at different times. Our major journal packages are on the following schedule:

This year we are evaluating Springer and Sage journal titles. We will not be renewing all of the titles but will do our best to subscribe to as many essential journals as we can. Springer has over 2,400 journals which will be reduced to around 100 titles.

7. Will we lose access to old issues of the cancelled journals?

No. We will not lose access to content if we cancel a subscription to a journal. We just won’t have access to the new content being published.

8. How many journal titles will be affected?

We don’t know yet how many titles will be affected. We do know it will be a lot though: over 2,300 titles for Springer alone. We are working hard to negotiate with these publishers to maintain access to as many titles as we possibly can within our budget.

9. How can I get a copy of an article from a cancelled journal?

Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery are always here to provide access to content from cancelled journals. We are asking campus faculty and departments to not subscribe individually to any cancelled titles as that weakens the University’s negotiating position with publishers and will, in the aggregate, increase the costs to the University negating the purpose of these cuts. If an individual or department has the funds to pay for a subscription, we will be working with the university administration to encourage those funds to come to the library to take advantage of the contracts and business relationships we have established with the publishers.

10. How long will it take to get a copy of an article from a cancelled journal?

Interlibrary Loan has a service commitment to getting all requested articles within two to three business days. Often, it is much faster than that.

11. How much money do we need to save?

Because we are still in negotiations with publishers, and the university has not given us our 2017 budget, we do not have an exact number. All packages are going to need to be evaluated as they come up for renewal. For 2016/17, that means we will be looking at Springer and Sage. As other packages come up for renewal, we will have to undergo a similar process. With annual budget increases falling short of the inflationary costs of subscriptions, we will be in cutting mode every year.

12. Could we cancel something else rather than cancel journals?

Cancelling resources other than journals would not help much. Additionally, we are contractually limited in what resources we can actually cancel this year. The Springer and Sage packages are the ones up for renewal this year so cancelling other packages is just not an option right now. Cancelling databases and other ongoing resources would provide negligible savings.

The library receives its budget on an annual basis with no prior knowledge of what it will actually be year-to-year. In the past, we have had a cushion built into the budget to offset any risk involved in signing multi-year deals. With the cushion eroded, we can no longer sign multi-year deals. Cancelling the packages now is about staying in the black in the next few years more than it is about staying in the black this year. With inflation for journal packages being just under 4%, our 1% increase in budget cannot sustain our collections at the same level as the past. Cancelling resources is a short-term solution to a systemic budget problem. Until the systemic problem is resolved, we will be in cancelling mode every year going forward.

13. What happens if I can’t get what I need?

The library will do everything it can to work with you to get access to the content you need but we will have to resolve these problems on a case-by-case basis. Please contact your subject librarian.

Department Representative Answers

1. What are my primary responsibilities as department representative?

Your primary responsibilities include:

1. Working with all faculty in your department to make sure they fill out the Faculty Journal Needs system before November 23, 2016.
2. Working with all faculty in your department to answer any questions they may have about this process.
3. As needed, working closely with your subject librarian to answer questions or get help.
4. Working with all faculty in your department to create and submit a departmentally-ranked list of essential journals before December 31, 2016.
5. Working with all faculty in your department after the library provides its initial draft of what journals we are going to be able to keep and which we are going to have to cancel.

2. Who can I contact if I have any questions or need help?

Your subject librarian is here to answer any questions you may have. Please feel free to contact them for any problems or training you may need.

3. Should I also use the Faculty Journal Needs system to indicate my essential journals?

Yes, in addition to getting all faculty in your department to fill this out, you should fill it out as well.

4. Can I see who from my department has already indicated their essential journals using the Faculty Journal Needs system?

Yes, we are working on a reporting module of the Faculty Journal Needs system that will allow you to see who has at least begun the process of filling out their journal needs. Until that is complete, please contact Rebecca Boughan, Electronic Resources and Licensing Specialist: rebecca.walton@byu.edu, (801) 422-3670.

5. How do I submit the departmentally ranked journal needs for my department?

The Faculty Journal Needs system will have an admin module that will allow you to create a departmentally-ranked list of essential journals. It will show you how many times a journal was listed as essential and who marked it as such. If you have completed your departmentally-ranked list of journals and the module is not yet available, please send your list to Rebecca Boughan, Electronic Resources and Licensing Specialist: rebecca.walton@byu.edu, (801) 422-3670.