Given the current budget situation and the necessity to reduce expenditures, Albert S. Cook Library regrets to announce the following database cancellations for FY15 and FY16. While the majority of these cancellations will take effect July 1, some, such as the Nature package, were effective in the spring, 2015.
Target: approximately $100,000 reductions total across FY15 and FY16
Criteria and process for determining cancellations:
This past spring, a librarian task group reviewed the library’s database subscriptions, focusing especially on the cost per use (CPU) for each database. Each year the library collects usage statistics for subscribed databases and calculates the CPU, determined by dividing the number of searches for the fiscal year into the cost of the database. For example, a database that cost $15,000 and had only 500 searches would have a CPU of $30 per search, which is too high a cost for the collection budget to sustain. In contrast, we have databases that are so heavily used that the CPU is only .02 or .03 cents per search. Additional criteria includes evaluating the database against other like databases to prevent paying for duplicate content.
The library spends over $800,000 a year on subscriptions to databases. Like journals, however, database costs continue to increase each year. Combined with a flat budget or, as in the current economic climate, a reduced collection budget, database cancellations are inevitable. The library regrets the necessity to cancel these titles, and will certainly help with ILL to provide content for your research needs.
Please contact Mary Gilbert, Assistant University Librarian for Content Management, with any questions.
