From: Worthington, Elaine on behalf of Sheerer, Marilyn

Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 8:48 AM

To: ECU Official

Subject: ILL and other Library Services

We here in Joyner Library have been much encouraged by recent campus expressions of support for Library services. This is especially heartening given the fact that nearly 40% of our book, serials, electronic and database resources funding was caught in the state enforced budget freeze; this means that we will not be able to purchase as much as $2 million worth of library materials—a very serious loss for this campus and its faculty and students. We have been working very closely with Academic Affairs and Business and Financial Affairs to obtain exceptions, but with the state of North Carolina’s budget situation, few exceptions can be expected.

Pursuant to the April 21 emergency budget management restrictions, Joyner Library has stopped its approval plan for monographs and music scores and is not placing orders for any new library materials (books, DVDs, journals, etc.).  OSBM has indicated that journal and database renewals will be treated as new purchases which must be delayed until the new fiscal year.  So far, we have been able to negotiate extensions with our vendors as these products have come up for renewal, and we will continue to try to do so.  However, it is possible that ECU may lose access to some electronic journals and databases for a brief period, as a result of the inability to pay these invoices when they are due.  If this occurs, the loss of access, and the reason for it, will be noted on the library web site. 

Looking to the 2009-2010 fiscal year, we are facing proposed budget reductions of eight to twelve percent.  Cuts of this magnitude will necessitate the cancellation of some journals and databases, as well as reductions in the budgets for books and materials.  We are starting an assessment project to evaluate our current subscriptions.  Subject liaisons will be requesting input from faculty in their subject areas to help prioritize resources.  The Senate Libraries Committee will also be involved in this process. 

Recently there have been some concerns about the curtailment of ILL services. The good news is that most of our ILL requests are progressing in a normal fashion. Over many years, academic libraries have created a nationwide ILL Network which supports low-cost or free resources sharing. Occasionally, however, some ILL exchanges require some expenditure of funds. Fortunately, Academic Library Services, in an attempt to continue vital faculty research support,  has been able to make arrangements with a third-party service vendor to use a credit balance to pay for some ILL borrowing charges for the next several months.  We anticipate that the credit balance will cover ILL charges made through the WorldCat Resource Sharing Fee Management Program through July. 

This program handles many of Academic Library Services’ ILL charges; however, there are some libraries, mostly outside the United States, that do not participate in the program.  Under the current OSBM budget management restrictions, Academic Library Services is not able to pay these libraries to fulfill interlibrary loan requests.  We are working to establish an interlibrary loan pay per request option that would allow the person making the request to pay for materials from these libraries.  We will send out more information when this option is operational.  We will be working closely with our Laupus Library colleagues to maintain ILL services throughout the ECU campus.

If you have any questions about ILL services, please contact William Gee, Head of Interlibrary Loan Services (252-328-2268; geec@ecu.edu).  For questions about other library services and resources, please contact Larry Boyer, Dean of Academic Library Resources, at boyerl@ecu.edu.

Larry Boyer, Ph.D

Dean, Academic Library and Learning Resources

Joyner Library

East Carolina University

252-328-6514