Here is the 2016/17 library materials budget as supported by the Senate Library Committee at its June 13th 2016 meeting.
For the third year in a row the University agreed to offer protection from exposure to the US exchange rate. The Library is very grateful for this support. Since over 80% of the budget is invoiced in USD, without this support the impact of a 1.30 USD/CAD exchange rate would reduce our purchasing power by over 20%. The consequences of large cancellations of subscriptions and reductions to monograph purchases to the research, teaching and learning communities at SFU would be substantial. A request for a base budget lift to address loss of purchasing power due to inflation was also submitted as part of the University's budget setting process, but was not supported.
This budget has been set with the assumption of the US/Canadian exchange rate at 1.30. In order to provide predictability in this regard, an amount equal to our estimated USD spend has been forward purchased at the agreed upon 1.30 rate.
Please note the following additional points about this budget:
- Serial allocations (includes Periodicals, Serials & Databases) have been set based on increases of 4% over the previous year’s expenditures, and with support for the USD/CAD exchange of 1.30, corrected for format changes, new subscription, cancellations, and other factors.
- Monograph allocations have remained the same as last fiscal year. Some funds may also have corrections to account for new serials, or, cancelled/ceased serials.
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, and other databases that are purchased each year (eg. leased ebook collections, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, etc.). Subject based databases are covered in the departmental budgets and more general databases are purchased out of general funds.