[Eril-l] sharing cancellations with campus faculty

[Susan Beck]

Karen,
   When I was the Collection Development Coordinator here New Mexico State University I kept track of all our serials cancellations through a libguide.  I created it in 2010 when we were in really bad shape and ended up cancelling 713 titles and about $600,000 in subcriptions. See http://nmsu.libguides.com/cancellations. I kept up this guide for years and handed it over to my successor just this fall.
   Each year, it seemed, I would also push the information, as well as the url for the libguide, about cancellations to campus through several venues: emails to all academic department liaisons and department heads, announcements through campus hotline type communications and e-mails to an internal faculty discussion list called faculty-talk which often becomes a place for folks to complain and generally show their not-so-nice, snarky side. We all have those people, right? Anyway, I would get a lot of feedback and, when the push back was strong enough, we would keep the not-heavily but dearly loved title.
   This guide tells the sad story of our cancellations  since 2010. I also included a chart showing all our cancellations or reductions by format from 1997-2016.
   I understand your crazy, cancellation times, Karen. New Mexico is very dependent on the oil and gas industry and as the price per gallon continues to sink, so do university budgets. We are looking at even bigger cuts midway this year and next. My deepest sympathy. It’s no fun.
Susan
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Susan E. Beck
Professor & Head of Access Services
New Mexico State University Library
MSC 3475 Box 30006
Las Cruces NM 88003-8006
575-646-5091 (o)  575-646-3390 (f)
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"To every complex problem there is a simple answer: neat, plausible, and wrong" H.L. Mencken



From: Eril-l [mailto:eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org] On Behalf Of Karen Jensen
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2016 11:39 AM
To: eril-l <eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
Subject: [Eril-l] sharing cancellations with campus faculty

Colleagues

I am looking for ideas on the best way to share information with our campus faculty, on the resources we cancel. We're doing massive cuts that will hit all sectors of campus. In the past, we've circulated lists of resources we were likely to cut and asked for feedback. Now we're shifting into looking at each and every single renewal that comes through and deciding whether to keep or cut, and we want to make this list publicly accessible. It's not so much for feedback, although I'm sure we'll get a few "don't you dare!" responses, and in some of those cases we'll change our decision. But mostly it's just a track record to show that we made it public before canceling.

If others have done this, have you used a Google spreadsheet, website, or what format for sharing the information? Email is not an option, because we are sharing 100% of our decisions and there is too much volume. Instead, we'll post everything in real time, and give them a place to look so they can see what is happening. We'll post title, cost, and use information, at least as a start.

If that sounds a bit crazy, it is, but we're in truly crazy times right now, budget freefall. I'd appreciate any ideas that worked - or even didn't work - at other institutions.

Many thanks,

Karen Jensen
Collection Development Officer
Rasmuson Library
University of Alaska Fairbanks
907-474-6695
kljensen at alaska.edu<mailto:kljensen at alaska.edu>


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