May 21, 2002

Dear Colleagues:

As you know, we must again reduce the Marriott Library's journal budget. In addition to the actual dollar reduction, serials prices, both print and electronic, continue to increase, causing a further decrease in the number of titles we can afford. We must reduce our serials expenditures by $300,000.

Library staff have created two lists of titles for faculty to scrutinize. These lists are prominently linked from the library web page. The first shows titles which studies indicate may be the least heavily used titles in our collection. The second shows titles which studies suggest have the highest dollar cost per use. If you wish the library to retain a title, send an email message to your librarian or the Serial Collection Working Group before August 1, 2002.

We expect to receive from the upcoming tuition increase $150,000 of new funding that has been earmarked for electronic resources. This is part of a continuing effort to migrate from print to electronic resources in subject areas where researchers prefer desktop access. We want to continue to purchase important new resources requested by faculty regardless of format. By redirecting funding from lesser used and higher cost-per-use titles to newly selected titles and electronic collections, we have substantially increased our serials holding to 25,444 titles of which 14,000 are electronic.

The library is pursuing all available options for easier, faster and better access to the journal literature. An expanded current awareness service makes it possible for faculty to receive emailed tables of contents for new journal issues, whether or not we subscribe to the journal. Online forms are available for Interlibrary Loan or UTAD (Utah Article Delivery). We now deliver articles by fax and by summer we expect to be able to email them. We are experimenting with commercial document delivery that may deliver needed articles more speedily.

We will not decrease the book budget although increases in book prices mean we will buy fewer titles. We have also reduced costs in other areas wherever possible. For example, we have consolidated the second floor Information Desk into the third floor General Reference Desk and have made improvements in the way we order and catalog books that result in cheaper, faster service.

As always, I welcome your comments on this or other library issues and please let your librarian know if you have concerns about any of the titles on the serials list.

Sincerely,

Sarah C. Michalak Director of the Marriott Library

First tier $270,000
No apparent use of current issues or over $100 a use with five or fewer uses. This list also includes a few titles, mostly odd formats like newspapers, loose-leaf services and microforms, for which we have no statistics but which we believe have very low use. We intend to cancel all of these unless we hear compelling reasons not to.
List by call number (broad subject)[.pdf]
Titles without call numbers (primarily those in the Mathematics Library and newspapers) are under S="Shelved by title."
List alphabetically by title [.pdf]

Second tier $600,000
Over $100 a use, more than five uses. We will be able to renew much of this list unless a substantial numbers of the first tier are saved or unless our final budget is lower than current predictions. We wanted you to see the total list since the cost or use of these titles is worrisome.
List by call number (broad subject)[.pdf]
Titles without call numbers (primarily those in the Mathematics Library and newspapers) are under S="Shelved by title."
List alphabetically by title [.pdf]