Dear Campus Community,

Each year the CSU Libraries provide our campus with access to millions of journal articles through consortial subscriptions to full-text databases. Unfortunately, this year John Wiley and Company, one of the largest publishers demanded an unprecedented rate increase of 10% for the CSU system. After thorough discussion and much consideration, the CSU libraries chose not to renew the subscription to Wiley as a system-wide resource because the terms offered would have cost more than CSU campuses could afford. Full details of the negotiation with CSU libraries are available at:http://libraries.calstate.edu/equitable-access-public-stewardship-and-access-to-scholarly-information/. Additional details will come from a resolution from the Academic Senate of the California State University meeting held on January 22-23rd.

Fortunately, through a perpetual access agreement, we at HSU will retain full-text access to the Wiley article backfiles for 1,300 journals we subscribed to from 1997 to 2014. In addition, many of the Wiley journals may also be available in other databases we subscribe to, such as EBSCO, although those may not provide current year access.

The HSU Library is negotiating directly with Wiley and EBSCO to secure continued access to the most-heavily used Wiley titles we can afford. Our HSU Librarians have carefully reviewed the past years of usage and cost data to determine which titles are most essential, using this data, we are finalizing selection of 29 journal titles that are critical to HSU research. Individual subscriptions to these titles can be incredibly expensive; for example, the journal title, Molecular Ecology, would cost over $11,000 each year to subscribe to. The Library will continue to provide access to articles from Wiley publications through our outstanding Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service, although we will incur additional costs from obtaining articles (approximately $35 per article).

Our HSU Librarians are contacting faculty and departments that may be impacted by this recent development, and providing updates.  If you have any questions about the impact on full-text access, please contact your College Librarian;

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences: Chris Salvano Chris.Salvano@Humboldt.edu Tel: 5600

College of Natural Resources & Sciences: Katia Karadjova Katia.Karadjova@Humboldt.edu Tel: 5617

College of Professional Studies: Jeremy Shellhase Jeremy.Shellhase@Humboldt.edu Tel: 3144

or

George Wrenn, our Collection Development Librarian George.Wrenn@Humboldt.edu Tel: 3412  

I have asked that a Wiley representative visit the campus to address this matter as a discussion about the sustainability of scholarly communication and scholarship, and to assess the direction that Wiley is headed. Once a date is secured, you will be invited to join us for that discussion. This situation is an opportunity to highlight that HSU Library subscribes to over 68K journals and is dedicated to providing access to information, collections, and services to support the teaching, learning and research of Humboldt State University. 

Lastly, if you are interested in discussing the library or library services, please feel free to contact me; I would welcome the conversation.

Sincerely,

Cyril Oberlander