Author: Michael Moore

Update 6/6/2025 

As required by the University President and Provost, the UW Libraries prepared a revised FY26 budget reflecting a 5% reduction in core expenditures. The impact to the Libraries collections budget of this planned reduction is a planned reduction of serials expenditures of $600,000. The original planned target to reduce subscriptions by $400,000 to offset expected inflation, combined with the additional budget reduction of $600,000 requires that we increase the target for this subscription review to $1,000,000. 

The proposed cancellation list below will be updated as we identify options to meet this new target.

Our budget projections for FY26 and beyond show that without additional funding to offset the persistent inflation on subscriptions we must once again make reductions to our subscriptions to maintain the balance of expenditures that is necessary to support the breadth of disciplines at the University of Washington.

During the 2024-2025 academic year, the UW Libraries will be reviewing all of our subscriptions with a target of reducing our subscription expenditures by $400,000, or approximately 3%.

• We estimate approximately 200 subscriptions are likely to be canceled, based on an average journal subscription cost of $2,000.
• The subscription cancellations that result from this review will take effect in FY26.

List of proposed cancellations for feedback

We are sensitive to the concerns about losing access to articles when considering cancellations. We are going to make every effort to minimize the impact of the cancellations. We are focusing on subscriptions where we have access to the articles in ways other than a direct subscription.

• For example, we have a number of databases that provide access to the full articles for hundreds of journals.
• Additionally, approximately 45% of new articles published every year are published Open Access (OA), and we are implementing new tools to make discovery of OA content easier.
• For the articles not available OA, we have alternative access options in place to provide timely delivery of articles on request.

We are preparing information and data for our subject librarians to share with the departments they support about this work and the process. We anticipate much of the work, including gathering feedback on potential cancellations, will start in Winter quarter and continue through Spring.

Timeline

November 2024

• Announce Subscription Review
• Gather and compile data for analyzing subscriptions

January 2025

• Librarians begin review of subscriptions and data

April 2025

• Initial list of subscriptions identified for cancellation posted to website
• Librarians begin gathering feedback on cancellation candidates

June 2025

• Librarians begin reviewing feedback

August 2025

• Final list of subscriptions to be canceled identified

Background and Context

This review and reduction is necessary due to the persistent inflation in the cost of subscriptions and the inconsistent funding for inflation over the years.

• The average inflation in journal subscriptions is about 6%. Our effective inflation on our subscriptions is closer to 3.5% due to negotiated lower increases on our large publisher packages.
• Left unaddressed, this inflation pattern would soon result in our subscription commitments consuming the entire budget for Libraries collections, leaving us unable to purchase books, media, and other resources essential for supporting the breadth of teaching and research at the University of Washington.

In past years we made similar adjustments to address the inflation of subscriptions.

• In FY21 we conducted a subscription review that resulted in a total reduction of our subscription expenditures of over $900,000.
• In FY22 we renegotiated our contract with Elsevier that resulted in a spend reduction of approximately $600,000.
• Those reductions combined with an inflation allocation in FY23 allowed us to maintain a healthy balance of our expenditures for subscriptions, monographs, and other resources for the last two years with no additional funding for inflation.

As stated above, we are sensitive to the concerns about losing access to articles when considering cancellations, and will make every effort to minimize the impact, focusing on subscriptions where we have alternative access to the articles outside of a direct subscription.

For questions regarding this subscription review process, please contact: SustainableScholarship@uw.edu