The Parks Library is in the final stages of a journal cancellation project that began in August and will cut 14 percent, or $550,000 worth, of the library’s periodical collection.

Though academic journals account for the greatest part of the 14 percent, some general magazines also will be discontinued, including Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Playgirl, Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies Home Journal and Seventeen.

Kristin Gerhard, library collections officer, said the balance of “popular” to scholarly journals on the list is “fairly proportional” to the make-up of the library’s journal collection.

The cut is needed because the library’s budget has not increased enough to keep up with the inflation of journal cost, she said.

“We get a certain increase in our budget each year, and [the increase in] journal subscription cost is much higher than the rate at which our budget increases,” Gerhard said.

In a memo to Iowa State faculty, Library Dean Olivia Madison said the library budget has grown by 38.5 percent during the past five years, but the cost of scholarly journals has increased by 55 percent.

ISU departments determined which of their journals will stay at the library during the first cut.

“Every journal subscription that we have corresponds to a department,” Gerhard said. “For the most part, what you see on the [online] list are decisions made by each department.”

In the first phase of the project, all the journals in the library collection were separated and sent to the departments for which they were ordered.

Of these lists, the departments were asked to suggest 19 percent to cut. Though only a total of 14 percent will be cut, the 19 percent allows for greater flexibility on the part of the library staff in making the decision after university input.

Comments on the list are being accepted until Thursday, at which time library bibliographers will review the comments until Jan. 11, when the final cut list will be posted and available for further comment.

The cancellation list is scheduled to be completed on Feb. 15.

“If there is a title on the list that you use frequently for coursework or research, that’s what we are most interested in hearing about,” Gerhard said.

Though there has not been much feedback from students, Gerhard said department faculty members seem to be understanding.

“Faculty and staff comment has been at a nice level,” Gerhard said. “Nobody’s happy about it, but I think people understand that we can only stretch the dollars so far.”

But some students feel the cancellations are “poor judgment.”

Paige Boland, senior in psychology who works in the periodical room, is involved in starting a petition to object to canceling the journals.

“We think it is outrageous that a school that wants to be the No. 1 land-grant university is going to cut the number of periodicals it has,” Boland said.

“If they are charging us more than the rate of inflation in tuition, the library should be getting some of that money,” she said.

The petition will be presented to the Government of the Student Body on Wednesday and will be available to be signed in the periodical room.

Boland said if more students were aware of the cut list, they would be opposed to the situation.

“I think a lot of students don’t even know,” she said. “I’m hoping by having a petition that it will be something that everyone can [relate to].”