SFU Library Materials Budget 2014/2015

Here is the 2014/15 library materials budget as supported by the Senate Library Committee at its meeting October 27, 2014.  The university agreed to support an increase to the budget to preserve our buying power and permit continued building of collections. As part of the university’s budget setting process the library received a net base budget lift to the materials budget of $366,000 for 2014/15.

This budget has been set with the assumption of the US/Canadian exchange rate at 1.10. We will continue to monitor the exchange rate closely and work with the SFU Treasurer to forward purchase US dollars at advantageous rates and to time payment of large foreign invoices in our favour whenever possible.

Please note the following additional points about this budget:

1. Serial allocations have been set based on increases of 3.4% over the previous year’s expenditures, corrected for format changes, new subscription, cancellations, and other changes.
2. In order to balance the budget a reduction of 15% was made to monograph lines. Some funds may have slightly higher or lower decreases due to agreements within departments to move money to support serial purchases, or agreements to cancel serials purchases.
   1. The need for this reduction was due mainly to the increase in the USD / CAD exchange rate.
   2. Reductions to non-departmental lines were made before the 15% reduction was made (e.g. Theses binding budget reduced).
   3. Some one time money was used to support newer initiatives.
3. We recognize that support for departments with less of an emphasis on serials (or with less expensive serials) has decreased in comparison with other departments; this trend tends towards an HSS / STEM split. In anticipation of another tight budget in 2015/16 and keeping in mind that the trend described above needs to be addressed, we will begin planning for adjustments to the budget before the end of the year.

 
An explanation of the fund codes used in the budget appears below. Not all funds will have all the following codes:

Books – Approvals (fund codes ending in a)
Purchases received in book form based on subject profiles set up with our major book vendor. Primary subjects are covered by these approvals profiles. Approximately 31% of all book titles purchased come in on Approval.

Books - Forms (fund codes ending in f)
Purchases from information forms received based on subject profiles set up with our major book vendor. Secondary subjects are covered by forms in the profiles. Approximately 29% of all book titles are purchased as a result of this alerting program.

Books – Discretionary (fund codes ending in d)
Purchases from information provided by faculty and students, or selected directly by the liaison librarian without input from our major book vendor. Depending on the subject area, mainly secondary subjects are covered by discretionary purchases. This method accounts for 40% of purchases on book funds.

Periodicals (fund codes ending in p)
Periodicals cover the journals purchased by the Library, both print and electronic.

Serials (fund codes ending in s)
Serials cover other regularly purchased items that are bought from year to year. These consist of yearbooks, annuals, handbooks, monographic series on standing order, etc.

Databases (fund codes ending in w)
Databases cover electronic indexes that are purchased each year. Subject based databases are covered in the departmental budgets and more general databases are purchased out of general funds.