On Tue Jul 22, David Goodman wrote: > For administrators in gleeful expectation of the "library windfall," > I note that the percent of the total US research university > library budget devoted to serials costs in 2002 was only 26%. > http://www.arl.org/stats/arlstat/graphs/2002/2002t4.html > This covers print journals, electronic journals, databases, > newspapers, etc. ; it includes all fields of study. If 3/4 of it > were science journals, that comes to less than 20% of the total > library expenditure.
But the 26% figure for serials costs is just for external purchases. To that has to be added the cost of checking the journals in, shelving them, binding, etc., as well as the space, cleaning, and related costs. If you get away from paper, you eliminate that as well. (Although some of it will be a displacement, since printing on scholars' desktop printers will increase.) Andrew Odlyzko
