[Eril-l] Communicating with the user community when cancelling electronic resource subscriptions

Fri Dec 17 13:27:08 PST 2021

We have liaison librarians for each department, so they will send the announcement to faculty (who may be more likely to read a personal email, but not always).  We also have a monthly report distributed during the academic year in conjunction with the monthly faculty meeting.  We provide rationale and price information explaining why cuts are being made, and alternatives for accessing the information (e.g., ILL).   The reports stay online from prior months.  You could try posting information sent to your faculty listserv on a libguide or webpage where they can review it later, but don't assume they will.  Some faculty have told us they always read the posted reports; some faculty have told us they never read the reports.   With the budget cuts lately, we can't necessarily ask the faculty whether it's okay to cut something.  Cuts have to be made, and we make them as judiciously as possible based on data and mindful of impact on research and teaching.

IMHO, don't assume it's your fault faculty don't know something you've communicated. Communication is a two way street, and you cannot make someone actually read what you send or post.  They may be overwhelmed with email (I know I am) or just don't bother to read your reports or don't think about the impact of a particular item until months later when they want a particular article.  There may be nothing you can do about this!

An anecdote from years gone by:  a professor contacted the library, very upset to discover that we'd cancelled a journal important to them.   When we looked in our records we found the cancellation occurred five years before they noticed.

Happy, restful, safe holidays one and all!   - Theresa

Theresa Arndt
Assoc. Director for Library Resources & Administration
Dickinson College
Carlisle, PA 17013
Office/voicemail:  (717) 245-1750
arndtt at dickinson.edu

she/her/hers

________________________________
From: Eril-l <eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org> on behalf of Brian Simboli <brs4 at lehigh.edu>
Sent: Friday, December 17, 2021 3:16 PM
To: Robert Wolf <wolfrd at fdu.edu>
Cc: eril-l at lists.eril-l.org <eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
Subject: Re: [Eril-l] Communicating with the user community when cancelling electronic resource subscriptions

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Meant to say, via searches like the one below, you can ferret through various public facing webpages to get a sense of how universities publicly disclose their policies  and to get a sense of  how faculty are invited to be involved in providing feedback.
Brian Simboli

On Fri, Dec 17, 2021 at 3:10 PM Brian Simboli <brs4 at lehigh.edu<mailto:brs4 at lehigh.edu>> wrote:
Try a Google search on:
journal and database cancellations project .edu
and variations thereof.
A lot of places have public policies or projects in place for cancellations.
Brian Simboli

On Fri, Dec 17, 2021 at 2:25 PM Robert Wolf <wolfrd at fdu.edu<mailto:wolfrd at fdu.edu>> wrote:

Hello,

We’ve been trying to develop a protocol for alerting our user community when the library is cancelling or discontinuing a database or e-resources subscription. We currently send notification via our faculty listserv, but it seems they’re always surprised when a resource is no longer available. I was wonder what, if any steps, other libraries take to alert their communities, and have they been effective?

Please feel free to respond to me off list.

Thank you,

Rob

Robert Wolf

Associate University Librarian for Technical Services

Monninger Center for Learning and Research

Fairleigh Dickinson University

285 Madison Avenue, Mail Stop M-LA0-03
Madison, N.J. 07940

[cid:17dca01e5ed4cdccc1] 973-443-8523 | [cid:17dca01e5ed5af44d2]  973-443-8525

[Image result for fairleigh dickinson university]<http://www.fdu.edu/>

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  *   Tutorial: Library Research in Psychology<https://lehigh.libwizard.com/f/psychology>

Brian Simboli
Science, Mathematics, and Psychology Librarian
Library and Technology Services
E.W. Fairchild Martindale
Lehigh University
8A East Packer Avenue
Bethlehem, PA 18015-3170
(610) 758-5003; brs4 at lehigh.edu<mailto:brs4 at lehigh.edu>; Profile<https://libraryguides.lehigh.edu/prf.php?account_id=13461>
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