Provost's pledge won't erase library's deficit

By Ettie Berneking

Published Jan. 25, 2008

Although Provost Brian Foster and Chancellor Brady Deaton pledged $600,000 to keep the library from slipping into a deficit, MU Libraries Director Jim Cogswell has become clear that $600,000 will only slow the problem.

MU's fiscal budget for 2009 allocates the additional funds to Ellis Library in order to prevent cutting more books from already dwindling orders, but MU Libraries spokeswoman Shannon Cary said the library is now looking at a deficit closer to $900,000 because of steady inflation in journal subscription costs.

Cary said inflation has been increasing since the early 1990's.

"Adding to the problem, mergers and acquisitions have led to fewer publishers, especially in the sciences," she said.

When Cogswell met with Foster during the fall of 2007 to discuss the 2009 fiscal budget, he painted a picture that was anything but optimistic.

With the cost of journals increasing 7 to 12 percent per year the library was looking at less money to spend on new purchases or subscriptions, Cogswell said.

He said academic journals make up around 80 percent of the acquisition budget. The university receives around 30,000 journals every year.

The problem, Cogswell said, is that inflation has caused the library to make reduce the number of books it's able to order.

The automatic purchase of monographs — a term for a printed book that only needs to be purchased once — through an approval plan with vendors has been cut back 30 percent, saving the library roughly $200,000, Cogswell said.

Because monographs are still printed after their publication, they can be bought at a later date, unlike journals.

Journals are harder to resubscribe to because of an initial subscription fee, Cogswell said. He said paying the fee to resubscribe would be a drain on the library's already limited budget.

"It's like a cell phone plan," he said. "And we don't he even get a free phone."

Ellis Library has found other means of saving money, Cogswell said. The library works with other libraries, including the Greater Western Library Alliance, a large consortium of more than 30 different major institutions.

Online versions of books and journals save shelf room and the labor it would take to shelve the publications, Cogswell said. Electric versions also allow students and faculty to access books and journals without having to wait for other readers to return them to the shelves.

"But electronic versions still aren't cheap," Cogswell said.

The decision to allocate the $600,000 to the library was made on Oct. 15. It was a decision that addressed an "enormous problem," Foster said.

"The library is central to everything we do," he said. "It's like heating a building. You have to do it."

Foster said the additional funding isn't enough to improve the library.

"Students will see a lack of change," Foster said. "But this money will hold us where we are."

As inflation continues to rise, Cogswell said he is not optimistic in the long run. He said this will be the third time he has had to make cuts at the library since he joined MU in 2002.

"I'm a realist," he said.