Using data for 2,717 journals and more than 9,000 acquisition opportunities, this study shows how journal prices vary by level of aggregation (single-journal subscription or full-text database), resource provider type (scholarly society, university press, other nonprofit organization, commercial publisher, or library vendor), and broad subject…

Academic libraries continue to face funding pressures compounded by the need to provide students with access to electronic resources, both in journal and book formats. With space constraints and the need to repurpose library space to other uses, libraries must carefully examine the move to e-only formats for books to determine if the format makes…

Introduction: Our aim is to compare the advantages and problems of e-book acquisition identified in research literature to those experienced by two Swedish university libraries. Method: A literature review was used to identify the main issues related to acquisition of e-books by academic libraries. The data for comparison were collected through…

The publishers' hall at the recent Association of College and Research Libraries conference, held in Seattle in mid-March, was a study in give-and-take: how much publishers such as Elsevier and Oxford University Press will give in this lousy economy, and how much budget-strapped librarians can take. Libraries are some of the biggest customers for…

Data were gathered on the costs charged by various service centers which contract Ohio College Library Center (OCLC) services to individual libraries, and charges were compared at the levels of 3,000, 10,000, and 20,000 FTUs per year. (An FTU is the first time a library uses a cataloging record to catalog a title in its collection.) It was…

Discusses the increased costs of library materials, the need for a new budgeting approach, and the impact of technology. The development of a library materials index that was developed at Ohio State University to provide a consistent source for measuring library materials expenditures against the marketplace is described. (Contains 14 references.)…

The rising prices of journals and serials--major information sources for academic and research communities--are explored in this work, which presents two contractor reports on the topic. These two reports are introduced by an overview and summary together with recommendations for further Association of Research Libraries (ARL) action, short…

This periodical price survey examines pricing trends, currency fluctuation and other predictors of 1996 serials costs. Tables are derived from analysis of three Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) databases and reflect subscription rates of large libraries. Sidebars include cost history information specific to mid-size to smaller academic…

Provides data on price trends for French academic books in the humanities and social sciences for the years 1986-90 based on information from the "Bulletin Critique du Livre Francais," a monthly book-reviewing journal. A method for developing a price index for this material is demonstrated. (Contains eight references.) (LRW)

Replacing a January 1980 publication of the same title, this collection of cost tables and other documentation from library materials cost studies conducted by members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) or by library vendors contains excerpts from: (1) local cost studies conducted at Colorado State University, Indiana University, Iowa…

Analyzes the impact of the rising cost of materials on academic libraries as reflected in members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Highlights include total library expenditures; materials expenditures; comparisons with price indexes; and the impact of journal…

Rutgers University Libraries are using a Microsoft Access database to track the purchase of books requested by teaching faculty for use in the Reserve Collection. Reports are generated which show what is purchased, how money was spent. Combined with circulation figures and LC Subject areas, the database provides documentation of library support of…

The first of five sections in this final report for the College Cost Containment Project describes the organizational structure and purposes of the Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC) and identifies the cost containment issues addressed by the project. The remaining sections describe the programs developed by the WRLC as appropriate…

Developed as a preliminary, literature-based study for a larger work in progress, this report summarizes the financial condition of academic libraries during the critical period from 1970 through the mid-1980's. The paper examines and addresses the issues which arose as libraries emerged from the 1960's, a time of unprecedented growth in library…

This collection of documentation from library materials cost studies conducted by members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member libraries in the United States and Canada contains 11 documents divided into the following sections: (1) methodologies and data collection worksheets from the University of California at Berkeley, the…