Take a look at some frequently asked questions about the spending reduction plan.
What is the Information Access Budget?
The University Libraries manage the $14.9 million Information Access Budget (IAB) on behalf of campus. The IAB is used to secure access to information resources for all of campus such as Library Search, databases, journals, books, and streaming video.[1]
Library salaries or operations aren’t part of this budget.
How does our budget compare with our peers?
While apples-to-apples comparisons are difficult due to differences across peer institutions (size, land grant mission, with or without a medical school, etc.), the University of Arizona’s budget for information resources is appreciably lower than the midpoint for our ABOR peers.[2]
How has the library maximized those dollars?
We employ every strategy available to sustain access, contain costs, and enhance buying power. As a result, we secure $3 worth of content for each $1 spent from the IAB.
In addition to engaging in intensive negotiations with vendors, consortial buying, and signing multi-year licenses, we actively manage our ongoing subscriptions, adding or removing databases or titles to meet changing needs and maximize value.
How did the budget issue start? What is the current situation?
Beginning in FY17, the compounding cost of inflation on information resources began to exceed our IAB allocation. We started covering the difference—approximately $500,000/year—with one-time money, while advocating for an increase to the IAB base amount from the Provost.[3]
Personnel changes at the Dean of Libraries, Provost, President, and CFO levels during this time period set back deliberations. In FY20, the Provost committed to filling the inflationary deficit with a base increase of $2 million.
Why are FY21 cuts needed after an increase of $2 million?
Approximately 90% of the IAB goes toward subscriptions to journals, electronic packages, databases, or other information resources that have continuing costs. These resources have annual inflationary increases of 4-5%, requiring annual reductions of $500,000 in expenditures to keep the IAB balanced if there are no IAB base increases in the future.
What’s the timeline for the spending reduction process?
February
Using a set of guiding principles for budget reduction, we have identified a list of resources for potential cancellation.[1]
March
We’re seeking faculty input on this initial list of titles.[2]
March-April
From this list, which represents slightly less than $XXXX in content, we must find approximately $500,000 in cancellations.
April
Final decisions will be made by our Senior Information Resources Officer, approved by the Dean of University Libraries, and communicated to campus.
July 2020 - June 30, 2021
Cancellations will go into effect whenever the titles were scheduled to renew in FY21.
What guiding principles are influencing these decisions?
For the FY21 round of cuts, we’re looking primarily at content overlap between competing databases, along with data on usage, cost per use, the centrality of the content to the discipline in question, and the availability of alternative means of access (e.g., interlibrary loan). We also consider the impact across disciplines and attempted to be as equitable as possible.
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[1] The IAB does not fund the specialized databases, books, and journals acquired by the Law Library, which reports up to the dean of that college.
[2] On average, we spend $2.5 million dollars less on information resources and $6 million dollars less on salaries than our ABOR peers.
[3] Because of University-mandated hiring freezes and other delays filling open positions due to transitions in upper library administration, the Libraries were fortunate to have adequate salary savings during this period of time to temporarily cover this deficit.
[4] Multiyear contractual commitments and bundled serials’ purchases (many of which are consortial) have limited the full scope of what is being considered for FY21. However, these resources are expected to be considered in future years.
[5] Because resources come up for renewal throughout the fiscal year, some may be canceled this coming July (or even late in FY20), while we may retain access to others as late as June of 2021.