Recent Trends in Academic Library Materials Expenditures

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 dollarnot 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), Chandra Prabha, OCLC, Online Computer Library Center, 6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, OH 43017-0702 John E. Ogden, OCLC, Online Computer Library Center, 6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, OH 43017-0702 LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 42, No. 3, Winter 1994, pp. 499-513 Q 1994 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois 500 LIBRARY TRENDVWINTER 1994 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 fieldswill grow at a pace which is insupportable in the long run. DATASOURCES 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 Ufidate, an annual publication of Research Associates of Washington. Price data specific to the library world are from Library Journal’s “Periodical Price Index.”