Submitted by Katherine Chew
Health Sciences Libraries, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
In 2006, faced with losing more than $250,000 in funding, the Print Reduction Project was born at the University of Minnesota Health Sciences Libraries (Bio-Medical Library and the Veterinary Medical Library). The genesis behind the idea was to reduce journal costs through canceling print and consequently reducing bindery costs while keeping any negative impact on students, staff and faculty to a minimum. During the course of the project, added benefits emerged. Physical space was freed up and was converted to expanded study space. Also, as online journal usage was analyzed, titles were identified that needed electronic accessibility upgraded, or in a few cases, canceled.
The metrics used to make the project a success included data from over four plus years of an in-house print-usage project. The libraries use SFX as their link-resolver and the collections development department creates and maintains a variety of usage statistics. For the Print Reduction Project, yearly usage (requests/clickthroughs) and "no full text" hit rates for titles were utilized. Both of the library's major journal venders, Ebsco and Harrasowitz, provided online availability reports, which laid out the various subscription options, such as print only, print plus online, online only or a site license.
Besides the metrics, other factors were considered. Did the particular title or publisher provide perpetual access? Were there restrictions on providing interlibrary loan from electronic copies? Did that title belong to a list of titles that the library was contractually obligated by consortial agreement to retain in print? Were the titles part of medical journal core lists, such as the National Library of Medicine's Abridged Index Medicus (AIM) list? The Health Sciences Libraries also has a fee-based service, the Biomedical Information Service, which derives the majority of its income from document delivery. Many electronic licenses forbid commercial use, so titles also had to be examined as to their relationship to the amount of usage they were getting from the fee-based service.
To date, there has been little or no negative impact on the students, staff or faculty of the Academic Health Center. Nearly 700 print subscriptions were eliminated. Collectively, the acquisitions and bindery budgets realized the $250,000 reduction, electronic access was improved for close to 100 titles, and 45 duplicate titles between the Bio-Medical Library and Veterinary Medical Library were identified and eliminated.
The project will go through one more iteration this summer before officially closing, as looming collections budget cuts due to the weak economy will necessitate the re-examination of retained print titles for fee-based and core list purposes.