SFU Library Materials Budget 2009-2010

Here is the 2009/10 Library Materials Budget as supported by the Senate Library Committee at its meeting October 19, 2009.  This budget was set at a time when the value of the Canadian dollar was much lower than the 2008/09 budget, and in the context of university-wide budget deficits.  Accordingly, this budget includes a 15% reduction to the allocations for departments and most general lines.  Although this is a significant cut and required over 700 serials cancellations, it represents an improvement over some of the scenarios that were considered earlier this year.  The SFU senior administration has assured the Library that funding will be available to cover the budget at this level.  Details are below. 

The following principles have been applied in allocating this budget:  

1. Most departmental and general library allocations have been reduced by 15%.  This calculation was taken from either the 2008/09 appropriation, or the expenditure plus encumbrance for 08/09, whichever was greater, after corrections for changes in cost due to format changes, serial credits, cessations, etc.  Serial lines have cost and exchange increases included.  The remaining reductions have been applied to forms and discretionary (book) lines in the budget.
2. Allocations for approval books have been set at 90% of last year's expenditure to reflect the change to paperback preferred.  There are a few exceptions where librarians have adjusted the approval plan in consultation with the department.   
3. Serial allocations have been set based on increases of 6% over the previous year’s expenditures, corrected for migrations to online-only format and other changes in each list.  Throughout the budget a reduction of $143,000 was achieved by migrating titles that had been in both print and online to online-only format. 
4. After analysis of usage and cost per use data, the large publisher packages of electronic journals have been retained, representing a renewal commitment of over $2million.  There is a reduction of $135,000 for cancellation of individual subscriptions of titles now included in these journal packages.   
5. Specific exceptions were made to the 15% reduction formula where departments or Faculties had transferred funds directly to the collections budget within the past two years as part of the course assessment process.  Faculty of Health Science and International Studies are the most notable exceptions.   Newer departments and those with very small original budgets were also protected to the extent possible. 
6. Serial cancellations were reviewed first within departments and then by the SFU community as a whole, with an opportunity for faculty members to notify us about any cancellations that would cause significant hardship.  In the end we have been able to retain all titles about which we were notified.  The list of proposed cancellations was reduced from more than 800 titles to 730, representing a value of $340,000.     

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 65% 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. 

Books – Discretionary (fund codes ending in d): purchases from information provided by faculty and students. Depending on the subject area, mainly secondary subjects are covered by Discretionary purchases.

Periodicals (fund codes ending in p): Periodicals cover the journals purchased by the Library.  

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, etc. 

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