Iowa State’s Parks Library will be forced to cancel 14 percent of academic journal subscriptions, an estimated $550,000 worth of journals, in August due to imbalance between the budget and the cost of the journals.

“The library regrets that we have to do this,” said Cynthia Dobson, interim collections officer. “It’s not anything we look forward to.”

The project will consist of two phases, according to an April 10 memo from Olivia Madison, interim dean of library services. First, the academic departments will be given a list of journals thought to be used primarily by that department and asked to identify journals for possible cancellations.

Next, the entire campus will be asked for comments on the departments’ initial recommendations through the library’s Web site, www.library.iastate.edu. A list of the targeted journals will also be on reserve at the library.

Each department has named a library liaison for the project, and a bibliographer has been assigned to each subject area. The bibliographers will supervise the departments and be a source of information for them throughout the cancellation process, Dobson said.

The current project is the fourth general cancellation project the library has conducted. The last cancellation project took place during the 1991-92 academic year.

“[The cancellations] will obviously have an impact on research, whether it is general research or for term papers and such,” Dobson said. “People will have to rely more on interlibrary loan.”

Richard Zbaracki, professor of curriculum and instruction and English and the liaison for curriculum and instruction, said he thinks the library does a good job of prioritizing the journals and keeping as many of the essential ones as possible.

“Usually they recognize the fact that it is a research library,” Zbaracki said. “They do their best.”

Some members of the ISU community are concerned, however.

“They’re going to have to cancel around $500,000 worth of journals,” said John Corbett, distinguished professor of chemistry and the liaison for the department. “That cannot be innocent for everyone,” he said.

Robert Wallace, associate professor of botany, agreed.

“I’m concerned about subtle changes that may take place when we’re not looking … until one day when you go to the library to find something and it’s not there,” Wallace said. “Down the road, it will have a significant impact,” he said.

Wallace said about one-third of close to 50 references he used for a recent manuscript came from Parks Library.

“Parks Library is an incredible resource that maintains the vast majority of research on campus,” Wallace said. “I am in the library a minimum of twice a month.”

He said he thinks the library should seek feedback about the project and prioritize the journals.

“We try to involve faculty and students across campus,” Dobson said.

Dobson said the amount of feedback is hard to predict, because it depends on which titles are recommended for cancellation. She said if a title up for cancellation is important to someone’s work, “we know right away.”

Dobson also said the library is investigating alternative methods of accessing the information. She said a committee has been formed to research alternatives, such as document delivery services.

Wallace said he thinks the library should make arrangements so that faculty members could seek other funding if there are particular journals that they want to maintain.

“The library has certainly always accepted gifts, and a few journals are paid for by special funding of some sort,” Dobson said. “The problem is that it’s very difficult for that kind of gift to be maintained.”