UC Santa Barbara Library

The library addition and renovation project will provide much-needed space for new programs to support the rapidly changing research environment, but will have no impact on the library’s ability to provide access to the scholarly record. Because of the insufficient collections budget, UCSB access to global research necessary for our faculty to compete and excel is now severely at risk. Despite high inflation in the cost of scholarly information resources over the last decade, the collections base budget has remained flat. As a result, UCSB now stands at a significant competitive disadvantage, ranking last among AAU public institutions in collections expenditures. Although the faculty have identified collections as the library service most in need of improvement, acquisitions will decline sharply starting next year. Even with the cancellation of a thousand journals, book purchasing will decrease by 50 percent, with further steep declines in the following years. We invite a campus conversation about a critical issue that concerns the entire UCSB community and urgently requires our collective deliberation and action.