April 24, 2009

Because of budget cuts and endowment pay out reductions, the Engineering Library will need to cancel about $140,000 of journal subscriptions to stay within our budget of approximately one million dollars.

The top priority is to preserve as much as possible the research collection for faculty and graduate students. As a corollary, many industry, trade, and popular journals will be cancelled, and we will maintain a minimal selection of titles for browsing in selected fields. The journals identified for cancellation have been selected primarily based on cost per use and input we receive from faculty and students. In some cases, we are canceling our paper subscriptions but will continue to have some, although not complete, electronic access through aggregators. Although aggregators allow us to get access to large numbers of journal subscriptions more cost-efficiently, their quality varies and continuity is uncertain.

The Proposed Journal Cancellations List allows you to see the journals identified for cancellation by title and by call number (for subject browsing). Since there are many relatively low priced journals, the list includes about 300 of 900 titles currently received in the Engineering Library.

Your feedback would be appreciated and should be directed to Jill Powell, jhp1@cornell.edu, who is in charge of collection development for the Engineering Library. Jill identified these cancellations with the able assistance of Mary Patterson, mep4@cornell.edu and Jeremy Cusker, jpc27@cornell.edu.

Steven Rockey
Interim Director of the Engineering Library
swr1@cornell.edu