ScienceDirect access for 2008 assured

UHM Hamilton Library experienced a budget shortfall for 2008 so sever that the cancellation of the Elsevier ScienceDirect package was anticipated. There’s been a reprieve; funding for 2008 has been found.

Kristen L. Anderson, UHM Library Collection Development Officer, has issued this statement:

Most of you have likely seen an announcement from Paula Mochida, interim University Librarian, that the UHM Library will continue to provide access to the Elsevier Science Direct Journals through 2008. For this reprieve we can thank Vice-Chancellor Gary Ostrander for providing additional funds.

However, please understand this is only a one year reprieve; it is not a securing of this resource. Our contractual obligation for Science Direct subscriptions for 2008 is $1,158,240. The Library does not have the budget to afford this amount. In order to retain as many of the Library’s existing subscriptions as possible and still have money to buy books, we have only $500,000 to commit to Science Direct. The benefits of buying the full Science Direct package – which we will lose with any cancellations - is access to an additional 800 Science Direct journals and access to all Science Direct titles by the entire UH system. Last July we prepared a title list that would have cut our Science Direct subscription costs to $300,000. We planned to allocate another $200,000 to purchase pay-per-view articles for individuals at UHM. Many of you participated in the process of selecting the journal titles to keep.

We will not be able to meet our full obligation for 2008. With the funds input from the Vice-Chancellor we will reach a spending level at which the vendor, Elsevier, has agreed to give us a one year grace period to find alternate funding to reach our contractual subscription obligation for 2009. While this is a very generous gesture from Elsevier for 2008, the Library would need to find additional funding totaling $716,152 to pay the total 2009 subscription price of $1,216,152 (contractual increase of 5% annually).

As Collection Development Officer for the UHM Library, I will consider any realistic suggestions you might have so that the library can continue to provide access to needed scholarly resources. In the meantime, we will be reviewing the list developed last July along with the usage statistics and other criteria as we prepare once again to face the need for cancellations in 2008. Thank you for your consideration.

The astronomy titles in ScienceDirect include:
Advances in Space Research,
Astroparticle Physics,
Chinese Astronomy and Astrophysics,
Icarus,
Infrared Physics & Technology,
Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer,
New Astronomy,
New Astronomy Reviews, and
Planetary and Space Science.