The Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) released a statement on Feb. 22 against possible cuts to academic journals in the 2016-17 university budget.
In the statement, the GSA said university librarian Wayne Jones declared the library will have to decrease its spending by $250,000 unless there is a significant funding increase, meaning significant cuts to journal subscriptions.
The statement added the reasons for the cuts include increasing costs of journal publishers, the declining value of the Canadian dollar, and insufficient increases to the library’s collections budget.
The issue was brought up to the GSA by Jones at a Graduate Faculty Board meeting.
“They’re going to have to make significant cancellations to journal subscriptions if they don’t receive financial increase for the budget in the next year,” said GSA president Michael Bueckert.
The university declined to comment until the budget is set. The budget is expected to be released on March 4.
Cancelling academic journals has become a trend at Canadian post-secondary schools, with the most recent occurring at Memorial University.
GSA vice-president (academics) Alannah James said this will likely be a deterrent for students debating which graduate school to attend.
“If I was a prospective grad student eyeing these cuts, it would seriously make me question the reputation of a university as research intensive,” James said.
Bueckert said Carleton has been cutting lesser-used journals over the past few years but the decision of which is less important has become complicated.
“Now they’re in a position where there’s no obvious choices left and they have to make more sweeping significant cuts,” Bueckert said.
The decision to cut the journals has not been finalized and Bueckert said the GSA has reached out to the school to find other solutions.
“I posed a question to Duncan Watt if they would be willing to increase the collection budget to account for this. It would prevent cuts and he said that they haven’t made a decision,” Bueckert said.
The decision for the cuts will be made at the next Board of Governors (BoG) meeting when the 2016-17 budget is released. In the meantime, the GSA has not been able to take part in the discussion with the board, which Bueckert said can be frustrating.
“I think it would be great if the budgeting processes with the board were more consultative and inclusive of the community,” Bueckert said. “I mean, the GSA would love to be able to make a presentation to those creating the budget about what the priorities are and make some suggestions.”
The BoG is scheduled to meet and announce the budget on March 23.
