Budget Update | Budget and Sustainability | Budget FAQs | Databases and Serials Identified for Non-renewal | Subscription Comparison Chart (pdf)
Fiscal allocations for acquiring and maintaining collections come from state general funds, tuition, grants and private donations/endowments. Decreased funding from the state of Kansas means growing reliance on the endowments.
The Libraries utilize a variety of strategies to ensure good stewardship of the funds including exploration of new models for maintaining critical collections such as:
- paying for access rather than ownership of specific titles
- supporting open access publishing movements
- working with vendors to supply bibliographic records for monograph discoverability and purchasing that item only when it is used or requested.
Additionally, although some materials are available in a variety of formats (print, microformat, digital), we collect only one format whenever possible.
The process
Assessment of Collections
The Libraries assess both the usage and value of the collection to its users: Ongoing usage studies help inform decisions about collection priorities, subscription renewals and retention of print and electronic resources. The Libraries also analyze circulation statistics for print materials, employ standardized methods for counting the number of uses for electronic products, and review interlibrary loan requests to determine if we should be purchasing rather than borrowing.
Collaboration and Cooperation
K-State Libraries participate in state, regional, and national consortia and utilize these memberships to purchase electronic databases and journals at a lower cost whenever possible. We also use interlibrary loan to supplement our collection.
Preservation of Collections
The Libraries participate in a variety of programs to ensure long-term availability of the collection. Our preservation unit utilizes recognized best practices for maintaining the physical collection. K-State Libraries participate in the Western Regional Storage Trust (WEST) that is a distributed print repository ensuring the access to original print copies of journal titles.
When licensing electronic resources, the Libraries strive to negotiate perpetual access rights to the archives should the title cease publication and/or we cancel our subscription. In addition, the Libraries participate in national initiatives to preserve electronic resources, including Portico, LOCKSS, CLOCKSS, and HathiTrust.
The Libraries are currently developing a digital preservation plan that will address preserving our institutional repository and special collections materials.
