The Red and Black

Issue date: 10/2/08 Section: News

POTTER

The University is gauging faculty and student input this month before deciding which journal subscriptions to cancel in January.

William Potter, University librarian and associate provost, said the University is considering cutting newspaper microfilms and not paying certain credit bills, which could save about $250,000. The extra funds could be put toward saving journals for which the library has received positive feedback.

So far there has been feedback on 925 of the 10,570 journals listed for online and print cancellation, primarily from faculty.

"The prices increase 7 to 8 percent a year," Potter said. "The money we saved some years ago [by moving journals online] has gone away now."

After hearing about the cancellation of journals critical to current research, many professors expressed concern about the list of journals to be cut.

Hugh Martin, an journalism professor, was "surprised" to see a journal that features his own articles on the chopping block.

"Each spring I put ["The Journal of Media Economics"] on reserve, not one but several articles from this particular journal," he said.

"I don't want students to pay money for [journal articles]," he said, who uses articles in his graduate level courses. "If you are not reading it, you are missing important information."

Listed subscriptions range in price from $20 to $12,051, with the average cost being around $1,000. This is often above the personal research budget of graduate students.

Geoffrey Graybeal, a journalism graduate student from Raleigh, N.C., said if the journals aren't available, most graduate students will just leave that research out, making their writing less complete.

The most astonishing fact, he said, was that the University was considering cutting major newspaper subscriptions and journals used in regular research.

"Ultimately it comes down to if it isn't here, it's harder to get it in the state of Georgia," he said.

Compared to other universities, the University was already lacking in its journal and book subscriptions essential to research before the cancellations, he said.

If the cancellations pass, Graybeal and Martin said the University may have trouble keeping up with other five-star research schools and attracting top-notch graduate students and faculty.

Undergraduates will still be able to use databases such as EBSCOhost or Business Source Complete through the library Web site, which offer articles a year after publication.

"It's a nice fall back," Potter said. "But I wouldn't pick a journal a researcher needs and say you need to wait a year for it. That may help the undergraduates to some extent."

In addition, the library will offer full GIL Express services through at least the end of fall semester. The suspension was postponed to allow time to find lower cost delivery options.

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