Collection Budget Reductions! Strategic approaches to problem solve our way out of this mess

Academic library collection budgets have suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyday collection development work requires careful adherence to the calendar to handle renewals and fund allocation processes. Staff must have awareness of offers and inflationary increases. They must continually evaluate subscriptions to uncover overlapping content, while also monitoring new trends and fields of study. Budget reductions introduce additional elements that make planning for and implementing a thoughtful, comprehensive process to address significant budget reductions extremely challenging. There are many factors at play! In a compressed timeline, collection development staff must examine and analyze: collection fund distributions and disciplinary needs and trends; cost increases (known and unknown); and the downstream impacts of cost saving ideas. The University of Minnesota Libraries created a framework that considers those factors in order to create a budget model that would allow for the implementation of 3% and 6% budget reductions. The presenters will discuss the Libraries’ framework that was based on their strategic plan. It allowed for both a mission and values-based approach using strategies and tactics to implement cancelations. The model also built in the development of a communication plan to ensure advocacy of the Libraries’ expertise as well as information for stakeholders to assist in meeting their information needs.