Libraries Materials Budget: Review of current subscriptions and other material expenditures to begin this spring

In light of the current University budget situation, the likelihood that next year’s budget will also be constrained, and the high inflation rates for scholarly materials, Purdue Libraries must, for the first time in over ten years, reduce annual financial commitments resulting in the cancellation of subscriptions to databases, serials, and periodicals and the expenditure for monographs. A complete review of information research and learning resources will be done to determine those that must be cancelled or where expenditures must be reduced.  

For the current year, FY09, Libraries received a 2% base budget increase from the University to support the library materials budget. While this covered a portion of the increased cost, it did not fully cover the estimated inflationary increase of about 7%. In other words, to purchase the same periodicals, databases, and serials, the Libraries needed about 7% more funding. This significant inflationary increase is in contrast to the consumer price index (CPI) which hovers around 2%. The University allocated $500,000 of one-time funds to cover all expected costs for the remainder of FY09. The Libraries anticipate a $1.0 to $1.2 million shortfall for FY10 in the materials budget, due to the base budget shortfall for FY09 and the anticipated inflationary increase in library materials costs for FY10.

In order to address this shortfall, the Libraries faculty and staff will be working with faculty across campus to evaluate expenditures for information research and learning resources, some aspects to be considered include: overlap with other resources (particularly with databases); overall cost and inflation rates for specific subscriptions and/or publishers; usage statistics for the materials; availability of electronic access to the same resources; the research value of the materials; and contractual obligations to maintain subscriptions for a certain amount of time.

Because the inflation rate for scholarly materials is the root cause of this problem, Purdue’s peer institutions and other CIC universities are also facing similar situations. The Libraries will work with other university libraries to meet faculty and student information needs, if not with collections within the Purdue Libraries, through interlibrary loan services.

The Libraries will collect data concerning materials usage, prices and price increases, and access through on-line databases. Once this data is compiled, Libraries faculty will begin working with colleagues in academic departments to determine which cancellations to existing resources are to be made by May, 2009. Publishers will be notified over the summer, and cancellations will be effective for FY10 (2009-2010).

You should soon be hearing more about this from your Libraries departmental liaison. To stay up-to-date on the Purdue Libraries review of resources, please visit or subscribe to http://scholarly.lib.purdue.edu. Information about the review process, costs of library materials, and decisions will be posted at this site.

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Robert Laughlin will be the fifth speaker in the Purdue Libraries Distinguished Lecture Series on March 31, 2009. Laughlin is a professor of physics at Stanford University and author of two books -- The Crime of Reason: And the Closing of the Scientific Mind and A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down.

His talk will focus on The Crime of Reason, described in this excerpt from Library Journal: "With humorous honesty (it can be fun to think apocalyptically from time to time), Laughlin uncovers the barriers scientists, engineers, and lay people encounter when they try to learn how the world works by standing on the shoulders of giants, the discoveries of others…  His argument is profound and not easy to dismiss."

Laughlin won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1998 along with Horst L. Störmer of Columbia University and Daniel C. Tsui of Princeton University, for describing how electrons behave when they are exposed to extreme cold and strong magnetic fields.

The lecture will be held on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. in Fowler. The event is free and open to the public. For more information about the Libraries Distinguished Lecture Series, visit www.lib.purdue.edu/adv/lectureseries.

Library grants awarded to faculty in Engineering, CLA

The Libraries have awarded two grants totaling nearly $10,000 as part of the Library Scholars Grant program. This year’s recipients are:

• Brent K. Jesiek, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and engineering education, for his proposal to study the development of the discipline of computer engineering in the United States from the 1940s to the early 2000s. Jesiek will use this grant funding to visit locations in Minnesota, New Jersey, Missouri, and California to further his research.
• Michael R. Johnston, assistant professor in English, for his proposal to travel to the U.K. to examine manuscripts from the years 1350-1500 for discussion in his book Compilatores generosi: The English Gentry and Romance in the Later Middle Ages. Johnston’s research trip will include visits to seven libraries in the U.K. to view manuscripts, as well as a visit to the London National Archives and various country record offices to find biographical information about the manuscript authors.

The 2008 Library Scholars Grant recipients will be reporting on their research activities this spring during three seminars. The schedule is as follows:

All presentations will be located in the Hicks Undergraduate Library, room B-848. Refreshments will be served.

Online tutorials help biology students search databases

Instructional staff in the Life Sciences Library have teamed up with faculty in Biological Sciences to provide online tutorials that help students learn how to search scientific literature. The collection of seven tutorials, ranging from five to 15 minutes each, were created using Adobe Captivate software. They feature voiceover instruction by library staff, questions throughout the tutorial so students can check their understanding of the material, and on-screen demonstrations of various types of searches.

The tutorials are currently located at http://biology.purdue.edu/bootcamp/library_tutorials/ while they are being completed, when they will be shifted to a Libraries server and linked from the Life Sciences Library homepage. For more information on this project, contact Maribeth Slebodnik, biomedical sciences information specialist and assistant professor of library science, at slebodnik@purdue.edu, or Laurie Iten, associate professor of biology, at liten@purdue.edu.

Virginia Kelly Karnes Archives & Special Collections Research Center opens to the public

The newly-renovated Archives & Special Collection Research Center, named for Purdue alumna Virginia Kelly Karnes, opened to the public on January 12, 2009. Located on the fourth floor of Stewart Center (accessible from within the Humanities, Social Science, and Education Library), the new space includes a reading room, exhibit space, a classroom, and staff offices. Grand opening events are planned for Gala Week in April 2009.

Archives and Special Collections is open Monday-Friday from 9:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m. For more information, visit www.lib.purdue.edu/spcol.

Grant investigates data sharing among researchers

How willing are researchers to share data, and with whom? That is the question being investigated by the Purdue University Libraries in the collaborative project, “Investigating Data Curation Profiles across Multiple Research Disciplines,” funded for $421,000 by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The research question grew out of interactions with faculty at Purdue who expressed concern about organizing and archiving research outputs, especially data sets.

Through in-depth interviews with 20 researchers in 12 disciplines at Purdue and the University of Illinois (co-investigators on the grant) the research team is charged with producing case studies of researcher data/metadata workflow, profiles describing policies for archiving and making available research data, and developing a matrix to compare parameters across disciplines. Halfway through the work, the Libraries are gaining deep insight into the cultures and needs of researchers related to applying data organization practices, using tools and standards to manage research outputs, and what it would take to share data. One important finding: researchers are generally open to the idea of librarians helping them to manage, share, curate or preserve their data.

Investigators in this project from Purdue Libraries include Marianne Stowell Bracke, Scott Brandt (PI), Jake Carlson (co-PI), Jeremy Garritano, Chris Miller, and Michael Witt (co-PI). Work concludes at the end of 2009 and it is hoped that it will lead to similar projects at other universities to contribute to a Curation Profiles portal at http://www.datacurationprofiles.org.

For more information, contact:
Scott Brandt, techman@purdue.edu
Jake Carlson, jrcarlso@purdue.edu
Michael Witt, mwitt@purdue.edu

Information for Copyright Holders of Books: A message from Donna Ferullo, Director of the University Copyright Office

As many might be aware, Google is currently scanning as many books as they can for their Google book project. Publishers and authors of the books still protected by copyright filed a law suit against Google for copyright infringement.  Recently, all parties to the law suit entered into a tentative settlement agreement. The agreement has to be approved by the United State District Court for the Southern District of New York and the Court has scheduled a hearing in June, 2009.

If you are an author who retained the copyright in your book(s), then you are potentially a member of the settlement class in this law suit. Between January 5, 2009 and February 27, 2009, you might receive a notice from legal counsel in the case that explains your rights and options under the settlement agreement.

Please read the notice carefully since there are time sensitive issues specified in the document. The settlement agreement can be viewed here. For general information about the agreement, members of the Purdue University community may contact Donna L. Ferullo, Director, Purdue University Copyright Office. For legal advice, please consult with your own personal attorney. For information about the Google book project, you may contact James L. Mullins, Dean of Libraries, or Beth McNeil, Associate Dean for Information Resources and Scholarly Communication.