Notes on Inflation Rates
According to the 2022 Periodicals Price Survey (PPS) published by Library Journal, periodical pricing is increasing at an average of 4.5% each year, for which, “[s]ocial and political instability, inflation, economic uncertainty, and the ongoing shift to open access purchasing models continue to make it difficult for libraries and publishers to plan budgets strategically. Rising journal prices and flat budgets may be the only things many will feel comfortable predicting.” Library collections budgets have not been able to keep up with these price increases and inflation continues to erode purchasing power, necessitating subscription cancellations.
Currently, 88% of the School of Medicine Library's budget is made up of serials (journal subscriptions). In order to maintain renewal rate increases due to annual inflation, an additional $59,400 (($1.5M X .88) X .045) would need to be added to the base budget every year. This amount does not include rate increases for subscriptions to medical databases (ie. ClinicalKey, Embase) or ebook collections. As the library’s collection is mostly digital (97%) a more accurate amount needed to maintain existing subscriptions is $65,475 (($1.5M X .97) X .045). This allows the library to maintain current subscriptions and additional funding would be needed if faculty/students need new subscriptions.
Deciding Factors
Below are the list of factors used to determine when a resource is considered a possible cancellation and removal from the library's collection. These factors include:
1. Curriculum Changes and Eliminations
Within the last 5 years the medical education curriculum has changed dramatically, requiring changes to course topics and student needs. Some courses have moved around within phases and others have been eliminated all together (eg. Medical Spanish).
2. Low Usage Resources
Currently the benchmark for cost per use (eg. searches or full text views) is set at $12.00. This is the current cost to interlibrary loan a resource through the National Library of Medicine. If an item costs more than $12.00 per use it is indicative of low usage and a determination has to be made either to keep or eliminate it from the library’s collection. Cost per use that remains below $12.00 will remain in the collection as this indicates high usage.
3. Out of Scope Resources
As the School of Medicine Library has pivoted its collections scope to prioritize serving Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV , resources that were previously supported, but do not predominantly support biomedical literature or research should be moved under the Lied Library budget. These include resources for nursing, allied health, and dental medicine. The list below is not a comprehensive overview, but a sample of resources that may be eliminated.
4. Redundancy in Resources
Anatomy Resources
The SOML Collection offers several anatomy resources both as resource platforms and ebooks. Vendors that currently provide anatomy resources include, Primal Pictures/Anatomy.tv (StatRef), Acland Anatomy (Wolters Kluwer), Thieme Teaching Assistant Anatomy (Thieme). These resources provide similar overlapping offerings and therefore would be eligible for review.
Point of Care Tools
The SOML Collections provides several point of care tools that are redundant in their usage. The SOML library can reduce the number of point of care tools down to one. This would require vendor review with stakeholders from Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV Administration, faculty and learners. Current offerings include UpToDate, DynamedPlus, Essentia Evidence Plus, and Ucentral from Unbound Medicine. These resources provide similar overlapping offerings and therefore would be eligible for review.
Study Aids
Currently, the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV Student Affairs provides study aids for USMLE to all medical students. As this resource is currently being supported by funding through the Student Affairs office, then USMLE study prep resources subscribed to by the library can be eliminated.