In Ohio, Miami University Libraries Cuts Approval Plan

From The Miami Student:

While the budget for Miami’s libraries has remained flat since 2010, at around $4.7 million, the cost of periodicals and academic journals has increased by about 6 percent per year over that same period.

In response, the libraries have completely cut what they spend under their “approval plan,” which allowed select publishers and university presses to automatically send books that met specified research or curriculum needs. Miami Libraries spent nearly $488,000 on such purchases in 2010 and $210,000 last school year.

This year, the “approval plan” budget is zero.

The decision to buy books has now been shifted solely to what are called the librarians’ discretionary budgets. However, those discretionary budgets have been cut by 40 to 50 percent since 2010, further diminishing each librarian’s ability to meet the requests of faculty and students. The libraries have budgeted close to $292,000 for such purchases this year, down from $564,000 in 2010.

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Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Funding, Libraries, News