[Eril-l] Tracking annual inflationary increases at the item level payment

[Laura Turner]

Dear colleagues,

For the past few years, our university has allocated a base amount for
library materials spending and then added inflationary increases as a
separate allocation to our overall budget later in the year for continuing
resources (i.e. subscriptions).   While we accounted for our
overall inflationary increases in library materials budget requests through
the terms of our publisher packages license terms, we did not try to
separate out the actual increases through individual annual payments in our
ILS at the title level.  For example, subscription title Y had a cost of
$100 in FY2017/18, which the university is essentially using as our base
cost.  Each year after that, we incurred an inflationary increase of X
dollars (say 5% inflation) on that title that we need to track separately
from its base cost in our payment of it.  So we would need to report the $5
of inflation separate from the "base level" for that title.

I am interested in talking to anyone who has experience tracking item-level
(to the journal title payment or individual resource level payment) of
inflation amounts for reporting to their university.  Our university is now
requiring this level of itemized inflation for continuing resources
payments.  While we’ve tracked this information on a package level, we
haven’t been required to do this level of reporting detail at the item
level.

Please contact me off-list if you are willing to talk about your
experiences.  I’m especially interested in the types of tools you are using
to track this level of detail.  For example, just through your ILS?  Using
some version of an ERM?  Excel?

I would also like to know what positions in the library track inflationary
spending.  Acquisitions staff?  A library accountant (do libraries still
have accountants?!)?

As we continue in the challenging times, all library colleagues are in my
thoughts for your health and well-being in your jobs.

Thanks for any responses!

Laura

*Laura Turner*
*Head of Collections, Access, and Discovery*
Helen K. and James S. Copley Library / University of San Diego
5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA  92110-2492
Phone:  (619) 260-2365 | lauraturner at sandiego.edu
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