Information Resources Strategy: Continuing to Provide the Resources You Need Fall 2016

Agenda Strategic Context: This is your scholarly communications system Issues: Commercial profits control scholarly communications Actions: How we plan to continue to provide the resources you need Discussion: We want and need your input

This is your scholarly communications system Knowledge dissemination is integral to learning and research The public-commercial balance is broken and the matter is urgent It involves many stakeholders: researchers, administrators, funding agencies, publishers, libraries The Library is engaging with all stakeholders, locally, nationally and internationally, in tackling the issues and opportunities We want to get you the information you need We want and need your input and support Remove slides 3&$ and have these as talking points?

Library Information Resources Strategy – One Aspect Modify acquisitions practices to address the issues of: Current publishing models Foreign currency exchange fluctuations New and continuing teaching, learning and research needs Envisioned: Continued support for current research and academic priorities Flexible serials purchasing practices, with targeted content selection to meet evolving academic needs within available funds Leveraging of collaborations with consortia partners

Queen’s context: budget background Queen’s recognizes the value of Library acquisitions: $10.2 million acquisitions budget (2016-17) above the U15 average for acquisitions as % of university operating budget Additional challenge of foreign exchange: one cent drop in the Canadian dollar is $100,000 drop in our spending power: ended 2015-16 with $1.4 million deficit in acquisitions budget 2016-17 includes $500,000 base increase plus $750,000 one-time allocation Multi-year strategy of spending reductions to address ongoing cost increases, new/expanded academic programs and research, and structural deficit Further facts for Q&A: Queen’s library acquisitions as a percentage of total university operating expenditures was 2.1% in 2014-15 (latest figures); U15 average was 1.8% Digital formats account for approximately 81% of the budget The acquisitions budget is 44% of the Library’s total base operating budget Continuing costs are [ ]% of the budget, leaving [ ]% for selecting books and other one-time purchases

We are not working alone: national and international context

A key issue… Universities & Grant Agencies (taxpayer $$) While publishers earn significant profits (e.g. 39%) Pay faculty to do research & report on results in articles Faculty give articles to publishers for FREE (and other researchers peer review and edit for FREE)

And a related key issue: “the big deal” Example: Queen’s University Library Acquisitions Budget, 2015-16

Queen's costs for "big deals", 2015-16, $CAD The big deal impacts the other source you need (e.g. books, other journals, streaming video, etc.): Regular cost increases of the big deals (often above the cost of inflation) are eating up more and more of the funding pie And we have less and less flexibility to meet academic needs Revised figures include HST.

Wiley facts Wiley titles = 2,423 Cost in USD 2012-13 $658,546 2015-16 $734,729 12% increase in 3 years Actual Payment (CDN) 2012-13 $688,316 2015-16 $1,017,600 48% increase in 3 years 137,347 downloads 44% of titles had 10 or fewer downloads 500 titles (approximately 20% of collection) account for 82% of downloads Content we have licensed to date will remain available to us

Planning and Engagement 2016-17: Focus on Modifying Acquisitions Practices Principal/Vice-Principals/Deans meeting – April 18, 2016 Invitational meeting of academic stakeholders – May 17, 2016 Library staff events – Summer 2016 and ongoing Faculty/Department follow-up – Fall 2016 Examine big deals, informed by multi-institution research project – Fall 2016 Evidence-based decisions about subscriptions to be retained; honing based on user needs – ongoing Continued collaborative efforts at provincial, national and international levels – ongoing We have ongoing consultations, here’s this year…

The Evolving Landscape of Scholarly Communications at Queen’s, May 17, 2016 Feedback Surprise: at journal costs, number of journal subscriptions, large and increasing share of the acquisitions pie going to big deals Concern: scholarly publishing controlled by commercial interests, author-pays approach to open access Reality: dependence on current value system of high impact journals (in Renewal, Tenure and Promotion, grant funding, institutional rankings), and value-added role of publishers Sense of responsibility: “The Academy needs to own the problem we created.” Representatives were identified by Deans to attend Handout

Study: We have access to more resources, but are we really using them? CRKN-organized multi-institution study based on research at U de Montréal and several other Quebec universities by Dr. Vincent Larivière Identify journals most important to Queen’s, using 3 data points: downloads citations by Queen’s authors survey of faculty, graduate students and postdocs to identify their 15 most important titles: 10 for their research and teaching, 5 for their field Goal: lower costs and regain control of journals spending and curation to meet Queen’s needs Happy to come to department meetings, conduct special meeting with department library representatives and/or department heads.

What you can do Respond to the Canadian multi-institution survey at Queen’s Continue to tell us about resources you want (and understand when we need to assess costs, priorities and alternative forms of access) Consider how the current issues affect your discipline Work with us to improve the timely flow of scholarly information at sustainable costs

Discussion We want and need your input