Annual Report 1997/98

The challenge and promise of electronic journals

During the past 25 years, there has been an unprecedented growth in the generation of new knowledge and publication. New disciplines and subspecialties continue to emerge, each with its share of journals. At the same time, the costs of scholarly journals have far exceeded the general inflation rate. The growing number and cost of scholarly journals present a special challenge: scholarly journals increasingly consume a disproportionate share of the Library's materials acquisitions budget, which grows at a much more measured pace.

A decade ago, we thought that electronic journals might offer a solution to this problem. Faculty members, students, and staff could all share a single electronic "copy." Furthermore, we speculated, if the costs for printing, binding, and mailing disappeared, journals would become less expensive.

To date, none of these hopes have been realised. Because electronic journals have not yet replaced print journals, publishers claim that producing electronic versions of journals increases their costs. As well, publishers have been quick to move into licensing on the basis of the number of potential users as their pricing mechanism, preventing a licence for a single TUG partner serving multiple partners. Though the Ontario Council of University Libraries is attempting to negotiate the best prices for electronic journal licences, significant dollar savings are unlikely. To be financially feasible, electronic journals will have to replace print versions.

Library Acquisition Expenditures 1997/98
Chart of Library Acquisition Expenditures

Building our collections

The budget allocation for library materials in 1997-98 remained unchanged from the two previous years, but for several reasons, the collection as a whole has not grown at the rate we might have expected. The decline of the Canadian dollar has had a serious affect on our acquisitions budget. Approximately 90 percent of the books and scholarly journals required by our learners and researchers come from outside Canada and are priced in U.S. dollars. Since last year, the Library has lost more than $250,000 in buying power as a result of the weakening Canadian dollar. Put another way, that's nearly 3,000 books or 400 journal subscriptions that we cannot buy because of the exchange rate alone.

Effects of the falling dollar on library expenditures

Since 1990-91, the Library's total materials expenditure has increased by 15.1 per cent, from $4,024,334 to $4, 633,930. Total purchasing power, however, has decreased by 45.1 per cent, to $2,209,750 in 1990-91 dollars.

Journals subscriptions, as noted, increasingly consume a disproportionate share of the Library's materials acquisitions budget, leaving less money to acquire other materials. In 1998, an invoice for U.S. journals from a major supplier was 18.5 percent higher than the previous year's invoice, and was for 134 fewer titles.

As a result of cost-saving measures in previous years, the Library was able to avoid a serials cancellation exercise in 1997-98. A large number of journal subscriptions were consolidated with our major supplier for savings on service charges and to increase efficiency in work flow. Nonetheless, as a result of high inflation in serials prices, preparations for a cancellation project in 1999 are underway. We have reviewed the overlap in serials collections with our TUG partners and are co-ordinating future cancellations with them to the best advantage of our users.

We're part of the solution

The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resource Coalition (SPARC), of which the University of Waterloo is a charter member, is a partnership between the Association of Research Libraries and other educational and research organisations. SPARC promotes access to information for research and teaching and encourages innovative uses of technology to improve scholarly communication. For example, SPARC has helped foster a collaboration between the American Chemical Society and the Association of Research Libraries aimed at distributing research results faster and at significantly less cost to libraries.

Notable gifts

Librarians, individual faculties, the development office, and friends and supporters of the Library have worked together to obtain gifts including collections, papers, journal subscriptions, services, and equipment. In the 1997-98 fiscal year, gifts-in-kind and cash gifts totalled $398,000.

Seagram Collection Opening Invitation
Among the notable gifts received in the past year were a 900-volume rare book collection and early archival collections from the Seagram Museum in Waterloo, which closed its doors in 1997. These important collections complement the Library's existing research collections in the fields of chemistry, chemical engineering, and the history of technology, as well as the decorative arts, temperance, and social history.

A generous gift from Hollinger Inc., a Canadian-based international newspaper company, has enabled the Library to set up information alcoves in the Dana Porter and Davis Centre libraries. Each alcove is equipped with six powerful pentium workstations, providing students and researchers with access to databases, electronic texts, and other electronic resources in a comfortable environment.

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