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captainogbleedmore t1_j7s4d41 wrote

Also want to point out that digital books are more expensive than physical copies. A library license for an unlimited user textbook can easily top $500. How will this save any money when you can get multiple copies of the same book physically?

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prettypeepers OP t1_j7s4spn wrote

Exactly! Thank you so much for your point of view. This doesn't save ANY money, in fact its going to cost so much more. The only money "saved" is from the librarians they want to lay off in July. The cost of removing all of the books, and the shelves, and remodeling the area would be so much more than what they would "save"

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captainogbleedmore t1_j7s5ipv wrote

There are a lot of other factors at play too. Not sure how they will get around reciprocal lending and borrowing agreements for interlibrary loan when you have no physical books to lend out. There are two virtual private colleges in the state and even they maintain their physical collections partially for this reason.

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prettypeepers OP t1_j7s5zvr wrote

Right, thats a really good point. They kept reiterating that "the interlibrary loan will still exist", but how will they accomplish that if they can only take and not give?

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captainogbleedmore t1_j7s79d4 wrote

They will still have their journal database subscriptions to lend out, but that doesn't cover a commitment to books. I do wonder how much of an increase there was to database costs with the merger. A school that size easily pays 100k for EBSCO's academic search complete, so I can only imagine the costs for Sage, ScienceDirect, and JSTOR. Hope their database budget is at least 500k!

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prettypeepers OP t1_j7s8w33 wrote

And the crazy part is those resources- we already had a lot of them! We have access to JSTOR, and a ton of researching resources. I don't know how all of that will be affected with the merger.

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INTPLibrarian t1_j7vifrz wrote

It looks like they're not laying off ALL of the librarians, at least. I hope they realize, though, that maintenance and support for those e-books (or other e-resources) is a LOT of work. I won't get into specifics, but basically, that's what I do. There's a ton of behind-the-scenes work that goes on to make these available and working.

They may find that they need to hire MORE librarians for this.

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prettypeepers OP t1_j7vq9fu wrote

Gosh, I can imagine! It's like, how are they planning on getting those E-Books? Will they create an entirely new platform, or are they planning on outsourcing and using a company? In which case, that brings an uncomfortable amount of control over which books we are able to access.

The entire plan is way more costly than how they are currently run, and all in a flawed notion of "progress."

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INTPLibrarian t1_j7wva6b wrote

There will have to be a librarian in charge of ordering them via whatever platform they are available on, then activating them, then managing access, at the very least. It's extremely improbable that they would create their own platform. That's just unfeasible. For e-books, there already is control over what you can access and that will continue. But, it is complicated in a lot of ways.

I haven't (yet) looked at the Vermont schools' current libraries to see what they're using right now. I'm assuming they will continue to use those same vendors and probably add more. It's not really outsourcing in the way that's usually understood, but yes, it does require working with outside vendors.

Hey, if I was having lunch with you, I could go on for hours about e-resources and libraries, but I'll refrain here. LOL.

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prettypeepers OP t1_j7wvhi5 wrote

Haha, I do not mind in the slightest! The information is very helpful and I appreciate you for sharing it.

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HappilyhiketheHump t1_j7sqamd wrote

Does “unlimited user textbook” mean that an unlimited # of people can have the book at the same time?

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captainogbleedmore t1_j7u1itk wrote

Yes. Academic licenses come in a variety of flavors: 1-user, 3-user, multiple users but limited to 365 checkouts in a year, and unlimited. Some, but not all, are DRM free. A number of mainstream publishers like Penguin limit to single user, so if it is a high circulation text the library is forced to buy several licenses at hundreds to thousands of dollars to satisfy demand. There are also annual hosting fees for some vendors like SAGE if you do not maintain a database subscription.

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NowIAmThatGuy t1_j7u3gc1 wrote

I wonder if this new president has any investments in book publishing companies. Someone should check his portfolio to ensure he’s not enriching his investment portfolio by way of directing state funds towards these publishing companies. Also, libraries seem like a low budgetary expense line item. I’m sure there are programs that are more expensive than libraries. Typically athletic programs top the expensive line item at universities. Why not eliminate them if the intent is to save money while preserving the educational integrity of the institution? Just seems fishy.

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captainogbleedmore t1_j7udaaw wrote

Libraries are always easy targets to administration in k-12 and higher Ed because they have high cost for materials. Let's say I am a librarian at a small private school and my materials budget is 100k and my new president thinks that no one uses physical books anymore so I am mandated to reduce costs by 50%? Well there goes JSTOR, ProQuest, LexisNexis, and an EBSCO subscription that gave students access to more than 2 million journal articles because the easiest thing to cut is database subscriptions that are paid yearly. Libraries also pay for copyright licenses that cover the school so that you and your professor don't get slammed with fines and charges for sharing a PDF of a textbook chapter. These fees are all based on school size so the higher the FTE the higher the cost. A major school will have a library budget in the millions. We are a profession that is always on the front lines of budget cuts and public apathy and/or misinformation that fuels more cuts. My first gig as a librarian involved making substantial budget cuts due to a president like this and the students and school suffered for it. And while these are all generalities, if the school has an a program with secondary accreditation in education, nursing, law, etc. Those accreditation bodies have their separate guidelines for libraries. Nursing accreditation requirements for one call for materials to be published within 10yrs, so library staff are constantly having to weed and replenish a collection. Imagine doing that with digital books? Separately not all publishers have forever licenses. Penguin previously would make public libraries buy a new license after x-number of checkouts. The rationale being that a physical copy of a popular fiction book can only survive 30 or so circulations. That's the type of greed you're dealing with.

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NowIAmThatGuy t1_j7uedyz wrote

Thank you for educating us on the nuance of libraries. I love libraries and librarians. I would not have made it out of undergrad or grad school if not for the library and those who ran it. And my use of the library was just the tip of the iceberg of what a library does. This action by the president is appalling.

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INTPLibrarian t1_j7vj4yp wrote

As I keep reading this thread... are you me? LOL. Thank you so much for explaining all of this so clearly. Like I said, I'm not even in Vermont, but wanted to see what people were saying about this.

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prettypeepers OP t1_j7vt7cr wrote

I cannot thank you and every other Librarian in this thread for giving this information. I am writing a paper about how awful of a decision this is and how incredibly important Libraries are for everyone, and this is so incredibly important. For the google form petition that I created, I plan on attaching every comment written out by people to the end of the paper.

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prettypeepers OP t1_j7vs1mx wrote

So I only bring up the libraries here, but the news we received also highly impacted our sports teams as well. I don't really mention it just because I don't understand it further than it absolutely screws them over. This link is to the post that was made further explaining the decisions. That is a really good point you made. I don't have any idea of what Grewal did before he became VSU's president

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