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

2. 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

3. 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?

4. 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

5. Queen’s context: budget background
Queen’s recognizes the value of Library acquisitions:
$10.2 million acquisitions budget ( )
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 with $1.4 million deficit in acquisitions budget
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 (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

6. We are not working alone: national and international context

7. 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)

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

9. 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.

10. 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)
$688,316
$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

11. 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…

12. 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

13. 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.

14. 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

15. Discussion We want and need your input