UC has access to a vast richness of electronic resources. Over the past 12+ years, the California Digital Library, negotiating on behalf of the entire UC system and in close collaboration with key UC-wide stakeholders, has been successful in leveraging the resources of UC to achieve creative and precedent-setting license agreements. This shared approach has resulted in significant discounts for the UC Libraries and access to far more content than any one campus could license individually. Local campus faculty groups have regularly been consulted during the licensing process.

Today, a great deal of scholarly publishing is in the hands of a small pool of commercial publishers who continue to derive large profits from the license agreements at institutions such as UC. Many academic societies have placed their content with these publishers in exchange for the promise of higher revenue. In the face of global economic challenges, publishers and societies have begun to demand that higher costs be paid by UC, thus eroding our historical gains and setting the stage for more difficult renewal negotiations. The primary goal for the FY10/11 CDL package renewals was to reduce ongoing costs given the budget challenges all UC campuses face.

During FY10/11, several ejournal packages were renewed with some content reduction in order to manage expenditures in the face of publisher cost increases. The UC interlibrary loan system provides timely access to library resources not available on campus.

UC Davis librarians still need your assistance to reduce overall costs for library materials regardless of format. We seek your suggestions regarding how best to address the growing trend of commercial and academic society publishers seeking increased revenue from scholarly publications that UC researchers author, edit, and review for nominal compensation. Please contact your librarian subject specialist if you wish to recommend a particular resource for cancellation.