The Libraries currently spend about $5 million each year on subscriptions to electronic databases and journals. However, publishers continue to increase their prices by exorbitant amounts. With average annual inflation rates of six percent, subscription prices have become unsustainable.

A new series of talks, Publishing, Access and the Future of Academic Research, explores the serials crisis and steps the K-State community can take in more detail.

If K-State Libraries continued to purchase the same materials from FY14, we project what cost $6 million in FY 14 would cost us a little over $8 million today. That is a 34 percent increase in five years.

The result

We are not the only institution facing the serials crisis. It is an international issue. Publishers are accruing enormous profit from faculty research, which is often publicly funded.

Content by Jill Cirasella / Graphic Design by Les LaRue, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

The fallout is unavoidable: As long as publishers raise their rates by six percent—and even more—researchers and universities will suffer.

Finding solutions

It’s time for the entire K-State community to join the international movement and fight back against publishers. Failure to act will result in larger, more painful cuts every year.

Administrators and faculty members can push to  

• Adopt open access policies in colleges and departments.
• Reward faculty for publishing open access through tenure and promotion.
• Use alternative metrics to assess published research.
• Question profit margins, push for open access and apply pressure to adopt sustainable pricing models.
• Publish in open access journals and submit your scholarly work to the K-State institutional repository, K-REx.