Timetable
and Task Forces
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As you know, Wesleyan University is cutting
its budget to adjust to the global financial crisis and the subsequent
reduction in the endowment. This is affecting all University
departments, and the library is no exception. The library's
monograph acquisitions budget will be reduced by approximately 47% next year,
the operations budget will also be reduced, and two senior library positions that are becoming vacant will not be
filled. In the next several months, the library will be devising and implementing a plan to
adapt to these changes.
This site has
been created to let you know what we are doing to align library services and
operations with the funds available in the current economic environment. The
goal of the site is to provide the Wesleyan community with important information
about changes at the library and share the principles that are guiding us
through this fiscal challenge.
Materials
acquisitions
budget reduction
Background: The library's material acquisitions budget is used to
purchase or provide access to content -- books, articles, data, images, and
sound and video recordings. One-third of the budget is allocated for monographs, and two-thirds for serials. The monograph
budget pays for materials that are permanent additions to the collection.
This includes books, CDs, DVDs, and large sets of electronic material. The
serial budget pays for subscriptions and other ongoing
commitments to resources.
Prices for books and other monographs increase an average of 2% - 3% each year,
and subscriptions increase an average of 6% - 7%. For this reason, in the
past the acquisitions budget has been increased annually to help
cover price increases and approve a certain number of faculty requests for new subscriptions.
Even with the annual increase, it is necessary for the library to occasionally review its subscriptions and
cancel those that are underused, to ensure that we are providing resources that
best support the curriculum. We last did a comprehensive serial
cancellation review in 2007,
and will not do another for 5 years.
Acquisitions
budget reduction in FY2009-10: The monograph budget will be cut
by $360,000 next year, and the rest of the acquisitions budget will not be
increased. Because the library will not be doing a comprehensive serial
cancellation review until 2012, the increase in serial subscription prices will
be taken from the monograph budget, resulting in a total reduction in the
monograph budget of 47%.
What the library is doing to minimize the impact: A subcommittee of
librarians reviewed monograph acquisitions statistics over the past
several years.
They have used data on monograph spending and circulation statistics by
subject to revise subject allocations and prepare selection guidelines for librarians.
The changes will be assessed at the end of the academic year.
Retirements: Two librarians retired this past year. Alan Nathanson
had been a Reference Librarian and Social Sciences
Bibliographer at Wesleyan since 1971, and Barbara Jones was the Caleb T. Winchester University Librarian. Pat Tully,
formerly the Associate University Librarian is now the interim University Librarian.
Neither Pat's nor Alan's positions will be filled.
What the library is doing to minimize the impact: Because the
remaining librarians and library staff currently have a challenging number and variety of
responsibilities, it is not possible to reassign the
responsibilities of the vacant positions to them. Instead, the library has
restructured its operations
to focus the time
and energy of librarians and library staff on our most critical services. Major
changes have been implemented and will be assessed at the end of the fall
semester and again at the end of the academic year.
Operations reduction:
The operations budget, which is used to pay student workers, supplies,
processing, and systems costs, is being reduced by 5.7% next year.
What the library is doing to
minimize the impact: Library budget managers reviewed the operations
budget line by line to identify reductions that will have the least impact on
library services, and these reductions have been implemented. The revised
budget takes into account the increase in the minimum wage on January 1, 2010,
which will increase student worker salaries by 3%.
Send us your
questions, concerns
As a library user, you
have a perspective on the library and its services that we do not. If
you have experiences or observations that you think will be of value to us
in this process, or if you have any
concerns or questions, please contact Pat Tully at
ptully@wesleyan.edu, or 860-685-3887
(x3887 on campus), or your library liaison:
http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/services/facliais.html
We
will periodically post updates on this site.
