There are great costs associated with providing access to academic research material. Many library resources are provided only by for-profit companies, though regardless of provider, the cost of collecting, digitizing, hosting, and maintaining the integrity of online journals and databases continually increases. Librarians are constantly striking a balance between containing costs and providing access to needed research material. Some factors that have the most significant impact on the library’s budget include:
The most significant factor that librarians must continually contend with is annual, and often unpredictable, price increases. Annual increases in journal and database costs may exceed the rate of inflation. In their Five Year Journal Price Increase History (2018-2022), EBSCO (a major supplier of information products) reported that journal subscription prices for academic libraries increased by nearly 20% during that time period. EBSCO's 2025 Serials Price Projection Report states: "effective publisher price increases for libraries are four to five percent for individual e-journal titles, three and a half to four and a half percent for e-journal packages and five to six percent for print titles (before currency impact)." and Library Journal’s Periodical’s Price Survey 2024 reported increases of between 5% to 7% for journal subscriptions and packages in 2024.
Librarians use a variety of strategies to contain costs while maintaining access to needed material. These include participation in the KLN, LYRASIS, and PALCI consortia which negotiate favorable pricing on members' behalf; analyzing use data to identify no-use and low-use subscriptions which may no longer be needed; utilizing open access material where feasible; and balancing the cost of interlibrary loan services with that of subscriptions.
Faculty will be consulted when the library is considering making changes to available resources.
Please direct any questions about this policy to library@harrisburgu.edu.