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Four questions to Hanna Bös, E-Media Department of the Main Library

Hanna Bös, librarian for e-media

What is the daily business of the Main Library’s E-media Department?

We acquire all e-media for the UZH – i.e. electronic journals, databases and e-books. The E-media Department is not responsible for the selection of the titles. We are responsible for buying, licensing, administration and accessibility. The process is like a cycle. When we subscribe to a new journal, we select the suppliers and take care of the licensing agreement. Once the journal is licensed, we regularly check how frequently it is used. If we notice a low usage, we report it to the responsible person. Depending on feedback, we might cancel the subscription. With the money freed up, we can offer to buy another journal. So the cycle starts all over again.

The E-Media Department of the Main Library is a UZH-wide service, in cooperation with the Central Library. We share the responsibility according to subjects. The Main Library (HBZ) is responsible for natural sciences and medicine (STM-disciplines: science, technology and medicine), the Central Library for the humanities and social sciences.

The costs for e-media are rising year after year. Electronic journals in the natural sciences – including medicine – are particularly expensive. Why are prices constantly rising and why are there such wide price differences between the disciplines?

It is true that subscription prices for STM-journals are significantly higher than for journals in the humanities and social sciences. In addition, prices have risen continuously in recent years by around 5% a year. However, price increases began even before digitalization. As early as the 1990s, STM subjects were concentrated on only a few large publishers. This led to enormous annual price increases and the so-called journal crisis. Nevertheless, I must say that not only prices have risen, but also the number of publications. The output in STM subjects in terms of published studies has also enormously increased since then.

What changed with the digitalization is that we become dependent on licensing models. It is no longer the case that we buy printed journals, put them on a shelf and own them. Today, we mainly acquire access rights to journals, which are often bundled in large packages. This leads to a growing dependence on publishers. We spend a very large part of our budget on licenses for the three major STM publishers. It is difficult to get out of such license agreements, because it would mean we would lose access to some core journals.

However, we are also seeing price increases flattening out again now. Perhaps the development has reached its zenith.

Who decides which journals are licensed? What can users do if they would like to have access to a journal?

Unlike for printed publications, it is not possible in e-media to have detailed acquisition budgets for each individual subject. The journals are bundled in multidisciplinary packages. We therefore limit ourselves to three separate budgets: Natural sciences, medicine and central acquisition. The subject specialists and advisors at the corresponding HBZ locations decide on the budgets for natural sciences and medicine. The budget for the central acquisition is reserved for multidisciplinary purposes. We have a separate acquisitions committee consisting of representatives of different subjects to decide on this budget. In 2017, we spent a total of almost 5 million Swiss francs on journals and around 1 million on databases and e-books.

Users can submit acquisition proposals to HBZ at any time. The responsible subject specialist – in some cases in consultation with a subject adviser – will review the proposal according to internal evaluation criteria. However, given the current financial situation, we can only order a new title if we cancel another one. Any decision will have to be taken on this premise.

Why are more and more journals at HBZ only available online?

In recent years, we have had to implement a number of cost cuts. We were able to save money by cancelling many of our print subscriptions. This seemed more sensible to us than unsubscribing electronic journals and limiting the range of journals available. We only cancelled print subscriptions where we saw that the titles are mainly used online. As a side effect, we could also reduce the workload for our staff in media processing.

HBZ’s strategy is to license what the students and researchers need and use. If there are subjects in which printed journals are consulted, as for example in nursing, we subscribe to them. If journals are mainly used online, we license online. There are still journals that are only available in printed form, especially from smaller publishers or societies. As long as these journals are needed, we will of course buy them in print. On the other hand, more and more journals are only published online.

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Hanna Bös is the head of a team of five librarians at the Main Library’s E-Media Department located at Irchel.