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Library battles market forces for journals Here’s something MUSC Library director Tom Basler, Ph.D., doesn’t want to see in The Catalyst: In the wake of budget cuts, the library has more than tripled its offerings of journal titles.   You really can’t blame him. While a statement like that seems to invite more budget cuts, it also implies a more complicated story-behind-the-story.    How did the library move from 2,500 print titles in the 1980s, to only 1,400 titles in 2003 and end up with 5,400 titles this year, all while working through South Carolina budget cuts?   It’s a story of massive mergers and buyouts in the scientific, technical, and medical publishing world. It’s a story of lightning fast changes in both publisher and library user habits, from print to online. And while it is about state budget cuts, in the end it’s a success story of unparalleled cooperation among South Carolina libraries and out-of-state libraries as well.   In years past, academic journal publication was a labor of love, often by family businesses whose motivation was to advance knowledge. But as the costs of moving from print to online publishing went up, multi-national corporations absorbed these publishers. Conglomerates with different profit motives now sell journal subscriptions in packages of unrelated titles. The best analogy is that of cable television, where channels are bundled, and the only way to get a channel you want is to buy a group of channels.   You don’t want all of them, but you cannot pick and choose.    “These packaged collections include titles we need and titles we don’t need, all being sold together with their contents non-negotiable,” Basler said. Consequently, the MUSC Library has 5,400 online titles, many of which are vital for an academic medical center to include and others that bear no direct connection to the university’s mission.   If there’s a bright side to the situation, it’s that MUSC can provide a more rounded collection of resources than a freestanding academic medical center might normally have. That’s why among the journals that can be accessed through the MUSC Library site are titles related to the chemical composition of concrete and the art of puppetry.   “Do we have the right journals?” Basler asks. “We are missing some of the hardcore research journals we should have, and we have added journals we would never have purchased.”   The difficulty is that some titles are still published by medical societies or smaller, for-profit publishers, and are not participating in the package deals. Some publishers are struggling to protect their revenue stream as they shift to online, which users believe should be cheaper than print.   This isn’t true, so these titles remain out of the library’s reach financially.    Publishers fear a loss of revenue if they sell online access to an entire university site, and lose individual print subscription sales to faculty and researchers. Some of the campus site license charges are outrageous, exceeding $100,000 for one title.   “It’s important for the university community to understand the challenges that our library system has endured due to the significant budget cuts that have occurred over the past five or six years, along with the increasing cost of maintaining journal collections,” said MUSC vice president for academic affairs and provost, John Raymond, M.D. “I believe that Tom Basler and his staff have exhibited unusual resiliency and initiative in responding to these challenges.”   An example of that initiative is a deal arranged by the Carolina Consortia, a buying group of 38 libraries in North and South Carolina, to purchase a package of titles published by Liebert Press. MUSC subscribed to seven Liebert titles until 2003; five titles were cut and two were retained. The retained titles cost $3,067 for 2005. With support from the provost’s office, for an additional $1,220, the library now has access to 60 titles, including the five cut in 2003, for a total package worth more than $30,000.     While the cut in support from the State of South Carolina has been severe, MUSC institutional support through sharing of indirect funds and student fees, coupled with a much higher than average library grant and contract program, has allowed the library to participate in more than a half dozen consortia.   “MUSC Library staff have been key players in a wide variety of library buying and sharing consortia,” Basler said. “Generally there are three values to these agreements: buying more for the same funds; buying the same for less funds; and sharing the collections with each other where copyright and license agreements permit.   “The library will continue to emphasize online over paper-based journals. We must continue to expand our cooperative purchasing and use arrangements, and we must continue to be aggressive in our purchasing practices.”     Friday, Aug. 26, 2005 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.