SPEC Kit 324: Collecting Global Resources · 37
Estimates.
European languages have an endowment, which can be spent on ebooks but not on serials or databases.
For questions above we chose to limit resources to area studies, and did not include any major global vendors such as
Blackwell, Elsevier, Springer, etc. If we broaden the definition to include those vendors, then expenditures would go up
but it would be difficult to calculate.
German Studies: Very rough estimate for German Studies materials only. Slavic and East European Studies: Addition
commercial products, as well as special collections-funded projects are multiplying. Faculty/student demand for
enhanced accessibility of digital versions of older, paper-based resources is increasing. South Asian Studies: Hard to
know. Many of what I count as global resources—such as world newspapers on Library Press Display—are purchased
centrally, sometimes in vendor bundles.
In several areas, spending has shifted to support new faculty, or the Libraries have received additional/lost Title VI
support. Since our state and the university are facing potentially deep budget reductions, the outlook for the next
five years is unpredictable. I have generally opted for “less,” even if the primary selector was more optimistic. Should
funding remain at current levels, there would be some shifts, but we might be able to remain at current levels in some
areas. Compared to five years ago, several areas have benefitted from gifts-in-kind or one-time funding however,
purchasing power for international materials is generally less. The percentage for electronic materials overall may be
low however, we do not have an accurate breakdown of titles for global resources in some of our journal packages/
databases. The estimated expenditure is based primarily on current database costs and does not reflect any portion of
costs for titles such as LexisNexis or Factiva, one-time purchases, or parts of journal packages. If our funding remains
about the same, I expect additional expenditures for electronic materials. If there are reductions, it is clear that some
electronic resources will be affected.
In the vernacular, area studies just does not have much electronic material published. There are exceptions like East
Asia, Middle East, and Western European. The percentage of each fund dedicated to electronic materials is relatively
low—about 5%. However, if you add in content from general databases like Academic Search Premier the percentage
is higher (10–15%), but these come from a general collection fund.
It is likely that our commitments to “big deals” in the future will put increasing pressure on the discretionary funds
available for selecting individual foreign published journals and monographs. Even among East Asian countries, types
of available electronic materials differ greatly. China and Korea currently offer more electronic monographs and journals
than Japan.
More interest in vendor community in publishing digital foreign materials.
Percentage above refers to materials in East Asian Studies.
Primarily, electronic materials for this area are received through our membership in OhioLINK and they consist of
e-journals and books available in e-book packages. Other e-journals and digitized books that may be used for this
research area are available free from various Greek library sites and other web sites.
Some parts of the world are not producing their own digital resources, rather they are being produced or vended in the
US using their materials. This makes answering these questions a challenge. Based on FY10 materials expenditures:
48.53% of the total collection budget is spent on electronic materials 78.83% of the total serials expenditures is spent
on electronic materials. Our budgeting for digital resources is by subject/world area, not imprint also we don’t collect
statistics for e-books vs. print books by imprint.
The figures above are educated estimates these percentages are hard to determine. Another educated guess is that
area/global studies is a growing part of our collection expenditures. This has to do with the changing nature of general
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