Last year’s state-budget cuts and the rising cost of academic journals have taken its toll on the Parks Library. Faculty Senate President David Hopper said the price of journal subscriptions has impacted the library “tremendously.” “It’s resulted in the four major reductions in the number of journals that we’ve had since 1980,” Hopper said. Olivia Madison, dean of library services, said the library can’t afford the journals due to the rising subscription costs. “We can’t keep up in purchasing new journals as well as maintaining the journals we have,” she said. “Nationally, as well as locally, libraries just can’t keep up.” Madison said the cost increase has resulted in several journal-cancellation programs at Iowa State and the University of Iowa. Madison said the two universities cut around $1 million in journal subscriptions – more than 6,000 titles. “The issue is that faculty and students don’t have access to all the journals and literature to meet their research needs,” she said. Many of the more expensive journals are in the latest areas of science and technology. Hopper said in order to combat the loss of journals, a Faculty Senate committee recommended the establishment of an electronic library for the university. Former ISU President Martin Jischke allocated $175,000 and made a commitment to give $200,000 a year for the next three years to the new project. The first installment was used to acquire more electronic journals, but last year’s budget cuts prevented the second installment from coming. Hopper said the budget issue has had serious consequences for the library. The Association for Research Libraries ranked the Parks Library 72nd out of 115 a year ago, but this year Iowa State has dropped to 84th, Hopper said. “It’s a very, very serious situation for this institution, for faculty and for students,” Hopper said. Hopper said there have been efforts to lobby the administration to get the money promised to the library, but the future looks grim due to predictions of more budget cuts from Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack’s office. Madison said the Iowa Board of Regents has formed an inter-institutional task force to fight the journal problem. The task force has put out a pamphlet for faculty and some student groups to inform them of the issue. Madison said locally the most important thing to do is to encourage the legislature to support university libraries.