Recent trends in academic library materials expenditures - Library Finance: New Needs, New Models

Library Trends, Wntr, 1994 by Chandra Prabha, John E. Ogden

Abstract

Library expenditures have increased faster than inflation over the last six years. Ironically, libraries are losing ground economically in several key areas. How can this be? Claims on the library dollar - not only unit prices but the full spectrum of library budgetary demands - are growing even faster than the library budget. Not only have the prices of monographs and serials increased, but journal proliferation has placed additional pressures on the library dollar. Despite the stability of library funding over recent years, libraries are shifting funds away from book purchase toward serials purchase. But even this shift is not enough to cover the shortfall. Book collections are weaker, and still many libraries cannot provide comprehensive coverage of the journal literature. Both serial cancellations and serial acquisitions are taking place concurrently.

Introduction

This article analyzes the impact of the rising cost of materials on academic libraries. While a number of papers discuss a particular library's difficulties or aspects of the problems faced by libraries, this article attempts to analyze the pressures and resources of academic libraries as a group, reflected in Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Trends in total library expenditures and materials expenditures are compared with inflation indexes, the consumer price index (CPI), and the more specialized library price index (LPI). Inflationary trends and the impact of journal proliferation on library collections are discussed. If present trends continue, the cost of supporting a first rate library - one with on-site access to a wide range of current journals, a rich selection of recent monographs, and other reference and research materials especially in technical and scientific fields - will grow at a pace which is insupportable in the long run.

Data Sources

Much of the statistical data comes from one of four sources. ARL Statistics is an annual publication of the Association of Research Libraries, a federation of over 100 major libraries across the United States and Canada. ACRL University Library Statistics is an analogous publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries which is published approximately every other year. In general, ACRL libraries are smaller than the ARL libraries but are similar in purpose. Price index data are extracted from Inflation Measures for Schools and Colleges: 1993 Update, an annual publication of Research Associates of Washington. Price data specific to the library world are from Library Journal's "Periodical Price Index."

Data Organization

The difference of scale between the typical university ARL library and ACRL library is such that they are best treated separately, although it will be seen that they are generally subject to the same trends and respond in similar ways. Connecticut and Brandeis are medium-sized members of the ARL and the ACRL, respectively. Connecticut, with 2.3 million volumes and a total budget of $13.1 million, swamps Brandeis, with 900,000 volumes and a budget of $3.8 million. In addition to university libraries, the ARL counts as members a dozen other research libraries. These libraries, listed in the end notes,(1) are distinct from the university research libraries in that they are tasked to serve not just an academic circle but a community of national, if not international, scope. Unlike university research libraries, these are often directly funded by the federal government in the United States or Canada. Finally, there are also two nominally municipal libraries - Boston and New York Public - which transcend, with a combined total of 13 million volumes, the confines suggested by their geographic names. These libraries, whose activities are in some respects unique, are excluded from the analyses since the focus of this article is academic libraries.

Total Library Expenditures

As shown in Table 1, when the aggregate ARL library expenditures stood at $720 million by 1982, nominal expenditures more than doubled to over $1.5 billion in 1992. ARL library expenditures have increased between 5.69 percent (1991) and 10.26 percent (1985) per year during these ten years (except in the recession year of 1992, when expenditures climbed by only 3.65 percent). ACRL library expenditures seem to follow the same general trend, though at a lower level. The ACRL did not publish statistical abstracts for 1983, 1985, 1987, 1990, or 1992. No projection is made for 1992, and the expenditure values for the gap years are interpolated estimates. Still, it is evident that the nominal expenditures of the ACRL libraries have grown substantially, if not to quite the same extent as the ARL libraries. To allow for variation in the number of member libraries over the decade (especially in the ACRL, where fifteen new libraries reported total expenditure data in 1989), it is possible to look at total expenditures on a per library basis. On this basis, ARL expenditures have climbed from $7.12 million in 1982 to $14.1 million in 1992, a 98 percent increase in ten years. ACRL expenditures have increased from $2.63 million per library in 1982 to $3.52 million in 1989, a 34 percent increase in nine years.