Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 11:01:58 -0600 (CST)
From: "c-boon@maroon.tc.umn.edu" <c-boon@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Serials Cancellations -- Cost and Strategies

This message is being send to several ListServs.  Please excuse the
duplication:

NO, your library is not the only one caught between the rock of rising
serial costs and the hard place of static or decreasing budgets.  In the
upper Midwest, the MINITEX Library Information Network is seeking to
share serial cancellation information among its libraries and to examine
how this information can help libraries meet the challenge of balancing
increasing information needs against static or diminishing financial
resources.

Libraries in the three-state MINITEX region (Minnesota and the Dakotas)
are providing lists of their serial cancellations and information about
why the titles are being cancelled.  The data is being stored in the
MULS Union List of Serials file in the MnSCU/PALS online system.  (For
examples of the cancellation date, access MnSCU/PALS at:
http://www.pals.msus.edu/webpals/home.html
 Click on "Search PALS"; then on "MULS, a Union List of Serials," near
the bottom of the display and "Submit"; enter "runners world"; click on
the first record with the asterisk (*) after the date; then click on
Serials Cancellation Data.)

We'd like to ask staffs of libraries across the country -- academic,
research, and public -- about the status of your serials collections and
whether you're making cooperative or collaborative efforts to meet your
patrons' needs for serials material.

Please respond to the following questions (directly to me -- I'll
summarize for the list):

1)  Has your library had to cancel serial subscriptions?  If so, what
percentage of active subscriptions have been cut?  What were the reasons
for the cancellations (i.e., budget cuts, low use, change in
curriculum)?  Or, have you been able to maintain or increase your number
of active subscriptions?  If so, what means have you used to increase
your serials acquisition budget?

2)  Does you library seek to provide patrons with access to the
cancelled titles?  If so, by what means (i.e., general interlibrary
loan, consortial sharing arrangements, commercial document delivery
suppliers, etc.)?

3)  Has your library dropped print subscriptions because you have access
to the titles in electronic form (whether on CD-ROM, full text, or full
page images)?  If so, is the electronic version the same as the print
publication?  If not, how do they differ?

4) How did/does your library decide which titles to drop?  Do you
consider the availability of the title in other formats or at other
institutions with which you have sharing arrangements?

5)  Are you sharing information about your cancellations with libraries
with which you have sharing arrangements?  If so, what is the goal of
this information sharing?  And, what mechanism are you using to make the
information available to staffs of other libraries?

Cecelia N. Boone, MULS Editor
(e-mail:  c-boon@tc.umn.edu)
MINITEX Library Information Network
S-33 Wilson Library
309 19th Ave. S.
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455-0414
phone: 612-624-4002  fax: 612-624-4508