Budget Update | Budget and Sustainability | Budget FAQs | Databases and Serials Identified for Non-renewal | Subscription Comparison Chart (pdf)
Frequently asked questions about the Libraries' budget.
How are titles being selected for review and/or cancellations?
All subscriptions (print or online journals, standing orders of monographic series, and database titles) are subjected to a comprehensive evaluation.
Several factors are compiled and reviewed for evaluation such as cost, usage (electronic article downloads) and circulation data, whether the publisher offers usage information, journal impact factors, and copyright costs of the journals K-State researchers use. Content Development librarians strive to collect as much data as possible to inform decisions.
What are the guiding principles for this exercise?
As we identify ways to make the collections budget stretch further, we will seek to:
- Communicate openly with the K-State Community
- Develop and sustain access to research materials with available funding to support research and teaching
- Maintain an appropriate balance among disciplines and user groups
- Remain flexible enough to respond to new research areas and purchase new resources
- Use gift funds strategically to purchase important resources when the opportunity arises
- Provide recommendations for alternative materials to substitute for cancelled resources
What can a faculty member do to help?
Review the list of cancellations and provide feedback to the Libraries. Faculty can also engage in activities that have an enormous impact on scholarly communication issues. The Libraries encourage you to:
- Learn more about journal pricing and inflation
- Stay aware of publisher policies regarding authors’ retention of copyright
- Examine the scholarly journals in which you publish as well as your service on editorial boards
- Support the efforts by professional associations, societies, and other organizations to develop alternative, less costly means of distributing scholarly information such as open access journals
When will the cancellations go into effect?
Subscription renewal dates vary throughout the year. This means that Libraries’ subscriptions and standing orders for titles slated for cancellation in FY17 will end with the 2016 volume and cancellations for FY18 will end with the 2017 volume in most cases.
When will the electronic version of a journal is cancelled, do we still retain electronic access to the years/volumes that we subscribed to before the cancellation?
Yes and no. Typically the Libraries will maintain electronic access to the subscribed years/volumes stored on the publishers’ servers and archival sites. The license agreement will dictate the rights to access.
How can I get access to titles once they have been cancelled?
The Libraries’ Interlibrary Loan Services can be used to request articles, books or other documents that the Libraries does not own. In most cases, journal articles will be delivered electronically to your desktop at no charge to you.
Are there alternatives for access to cancelled journals, other than interlibrary loan?
K-State Libraries provides access to many full-text databases that offer access to full-text of a large array of scholarly journals, professional publications, and newspapers. However, in some cases full-text databases are not an exact substitute for a full subscription to a journal. In some instances the coverage may not include every article, letters to the editor, or book reviews and it may not include graphics (illustrations, charts, or maps).
Additionally, many of the journals included in databases have “embargo periods.” This means that the publisher of an embargoed title does not allow the database to release the full-text content for a predetermined length of time, often six months to three years. Another option is to purchase the article yourself, which is sometimes offered from journals to which we don’t subscribe.
Whom should I contact at the Libraries for more information?
Please contact Dean Lori Goetsch, lgoetsch@k-state.edu or (785) 532-7492, with questions.
