SFU Library Materials Budget 2011/2012

Here is the 2011/2012 library materials budget as supported by the Senate Library Committee at its meeting June 13, 2011.The university has again agreed to protect the collection budget from reductions to preserve our buying power and permit continued building of collections.As part of the university’s new budget process the library received a base budget lift of $40,000 for 2011/12 to recognize pressure on the collections budget from serial price increases and growth in programming.

While we recognize the difficulty of the university’s current budget environment, the $40,000 does not completely cover the expected inflation affecting acquisitions for 2011/12.Serial increases have been budgeted as known or expected, leaving no room to increase book allocations over last year’s level.Budgeting in this way over time would skew the budget in favour of journal oriented disciplines and away from those disciplines that rely more on monographs, so is not sustainable for any period of time. A memo detailing the expected cost increases in 2011/12 has been submitted to the VP Research; if this funding becomes available it will be distributed proportionally across the budget to hold book purchasing power even with 2010/11 levels.

This budget has been set with the assumption of the US/Canadian exchange rate at par.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 when this is possible.

Please note the following additional points about this budget:

1. Serial allocations have been set based on increases of 3% over the previous year’s expenditures, corrected for migrations to online-only format and other changes in each list.Where we have multi-year agreements with known price caps the exact figures have been used in setting the budget for specific lines.
2. As noted above, no increases to monograph funds have been possible in this budget.Monograph funds that were fully spent in 2010/11 have been preserved at last year’s level.Some that were not fully spent in 2010/11 have been reduced slightly.
3. In response to changes in the library bookselling industry in 2010/11 the library contracted with a new primary book vendor for English language books using an RFP process.The migration of our large book approval plans to a new vendor went smoothly, but resulted in some changes in the mix of approval/forms/discretionary spending on books lines in several subject areas.This budget allocates these lines as we expect they will play out for 2011/12, which is not always in the same pattern as in the 2010/11 transition year.
4. To align with the university structure, Archaeology funds now roll up under Faculty of the Environment instead of Arts & Social Sciences, affecting the overall totals for both of these Faculties.
5. The allocation for “Miscellaneous Foreign Literature” has been reduced.Major works of world literature in translation had traditionally been purchased for the Bennett collection from this line.The World Literature program in Surrey now collects much of this material.In consultation with this program and the English department, the funds have been put toward a new subscription to a major literary database (Literature Online from Chadwyck Healey).
6. Costs for converting texts into accessible alternative formats for students with disabilities increased from $13,000 in 2009/10 to over $25,000 in 2010/11.The increased cost is reflected in this budget.

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

Books - Approvals: 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: 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: 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.

Periodicals cover the journals purchased by the Library, both print and electronic.

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 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 the general funds.