COLUMN: Funding commitment signals future for library
Last week in his State of the University address, President Hall stated that now is the time to make a commitment to the most pressing need on campus – the library. He demonstrated that commitment by proposing an ongoing budget increase of $1.2 million from Tier II Tuition funds. In doing so, he underscored the urgency and significance of properly funding the library. My purpose in contributing this column is to provide some context for understanding the extent of the need and what the budgetary increase means for the university.
For more than a decade, the library has been seriously under-funded. It never recovered from the successive years of budget cutting in the ’80s and did not receive new funds to accommodate growth in the student population and in the use of technology. Compared with our peer institutions, the library annually has had, on average, $1.3 million less to spend on books and $1.8 million less to spend on journals. To its credit, the library staff has been a frugal and inventive steward in making do with the resources we have received.
The issue of journal costs is a significant one for USU, as it is for all university and research libraries. Over the past 14 years, journal subscription prices have jumped 226 percent. Inflation for 2004 is predicted to be 12 percent. For the most part, libraries have been powerless to change the trend. University and research libraries need to maintain high-quality journal collections that faculty and students rely on for timely information in their fields. While many journals are available online, electronic copies are not always the answer as they are subject to the same inflationary costs.
How does this scenario play out at USU? The library has 4,000 paid journal subscriptions that cost approximately $2.3 million. Its state-allocated budget for journals is $1.3 million. As a result, the library has been faced with the annual challenge of finding the additional $1 million to cover the needed expenditure or radically cutting journal subscriptions. For years, the library has dealt with the deficit by taking from the book acquisitions budget, by counting on a year-to-year supplemental allocation from the office of the vice president for research, and by tapping any other available sources of funding, most recently Tier II Tuition. When the deficit could not be made up, the library has been forced to cancel journal subscriptions.
The $1.2 million base-budget increase, along with a proposed .5 percent set-aside from future Tier II tuition increases over the next five years, brings some much-needed relief and stability to library funding for journals. The immediate impact is obvious: With dependable funding, annual increases, continued prudent spending, and ongoing collection assessment, the library will be able to maintain its journal collection and avert further large-scale cancellations. Access to journal literature benefits all programs and all users.
In the long-term, increasing the library’s budget is an investment in the university’s future. The quality and reputation of a research university is judged in large part by the quality of its library, and the number of volumes and journals held are often the standard against which that quality is measured. Securing permanent funding for journal resources brings Utah State a step closer to the Phi Beta Kappa status to which it aspires, and closer to fulfilling its stated mission and goals.
The president, the provost, and especially the students of USU are to be commended for recognizing the magnitude of the funding problem facing their library, and thanked for the significant step they’ve taken to remedy it. Now is, indeed, the time to make a commitment to the university library. Together with the construction of the new building, the infusion of ongoing funding in support of the library sets it on a new course and makes a dramatic statement that at Utah State University the importance of academics really does come first.
Linda L. Wolcott is the vice provost for libraries. Comments can be sent to linda.wolcott@usu.edu.