The Outlook for Journal Subscriptions

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Once notified that the Libraries will receive a static budget for 1995/96, we began to predict the damage to our ability to collect at current levels.

Estimates provided by serials vendors indicated increases of from 15-19% for the coming year. In general, titles in science and technology cost the most and rise faster than others. Foreign titles -- especially those published by European commercial publishers -- are more costly than U.S. publications.

We pay more for science and technology titles than for social science and humanities titles. We also pay more for foreign periodical titles than domestic titles even though foreign titles comprise only 36% of our total subscriptions. Because of these two factors we estimate the 1995/96 price increases for our periodicals will be about $409,000.

The outlook for monograph price increases is only slightly less gloomy. Book vendors predict increases of up to 8% for the coming year. Although the rate of increase is considerably less than that of serials, it is still notably higher than either the Consumer Price Index or the Higher Education Price Index. To purchase monographs at last year's level will require an additional $55,000.

Given the 1995/96 price increase, our static budget, and projections that inordinately high price increases will continue in the future, we have determined that it will be necessary to make cuts in both periodicals and monograph purchasing. It is also wise to make the present cuts in such a way so as not to have to repeat this painful exercise next year.

The Libraries last cancelled periodicals in 1991. Since that time we have instituted a number of new services intended to mitigate the detrimental effects that inevitably result from a cancellation of periodicals. These include:

The Interlibrary Services unit (ILS) has expanded the number of institutions from whom we may borrow materials free of charge.
ILS uses a number of time-saving features to reduce turnaround time, including a state-of-the-art online document transmission service and expanded use of private parcel carriers.
Current Contents, an online table of contents service, is now available.
UTK faculty and students may now request articles from such services as FirstSearch and CARL Uncover.
Selected new journal titles may still be ordered with firm order fund transfers, for example.

This year we will be using a new methodology to adjust to the greatly reduced buying power of our budget:

Cuts of more than $400,000 will be targeted from periodicals and serials, and $175,000 from monograph purchases.
We will use endowed funds to provide $100,000 for substitute firm order purchases.
We intend to proceed with a systematic program of review and analysis (see article below).

"If invoiced at mid-September exchange rates, European journals priced in country-of-origin currency would show price increases of approximately 13.2 to 15.2 percent if published in Great Britain; 17 to 19 percent if published in The Netherlands and Germany; and about 20.5 to 22.5 percent if published in France and Switzerland."

"1995 Serial Subscription Price Update," At Your Service, no. 30 (September/October/November 1994): 2.