U. California Libraries Send Open Letter to Licensed Content Providers

On 26 May, 2009 the University of California Libraries sent an Open Letter to Licensed Content Providers concerning the major fiscal challenges affecting higher education in California.

Excerpt:

The University of California Libraries ask all information providers with whom we negotiate content licenses to respond to the major fiscal challenges affecting higher education in California in a spirit of collaboration and mutual problem-solving. We expect to work with each of our vendors at renewal to develop creative solutions that can preserve the greatest amount of content to meet the information needs of the University of California’s students, faculty,
and researchers.

The economic crisis affecting libraries is particularly acute in California, which as of this writing (May 2009) is forecasting a $21 billion state budget shortfall for 2010 despite previous efforts to close a $42 billion budget gap in 2009. As a state-supported institution, the University of California has experienced significant budget reductions in fiscal year 2009, with more reductions to come. Coupled with the typical inflationary increases for scholarly publications, the erosion of library buying power will have a profound and lasting impact on all of the UC libraries. We welcome all innovative proposals for managing through these difficult times.

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