LIBRARY BUDGET REDUCTIONS

Memo from Bill Gosling to the Academic Program Group

March 25, 2003

Colleagues,

The Library’s budget conference for the fiscal year 2004 budget was held on March 18th. In that meeting we outlined the steps we will take to respond to current budget challenges including the State budget cuts’ impact on the University and the Library.

The University Libraries are funded primarily by revenues from the General Fund. The cuts we are implementing result in a General Fund reduction and reallocation of more than $2 million.

Our guiding strategy followed the Provost’s guideline to protect scholarly and academic initiatives as much as possible while working to trim in the areas of administrative support. This plan protects the range of services offered to students and faculty, with minimal impact on our hours of operations. There should be no radical change in service at the major service points; however, patrons may see a slower response in some areas, including shelving of some materials, cataloging of new materials, and interlibrary loans.

We will trim our operations budget in every possible area. This includes expenditures for equipment, facilities, supplies, computers, maintenance, staff development, travel, and Library brochures and similar publications.

Importantly, we have worked to preserve our collections budget. We anticipate a zero increase this next year. A five percent inflationary increase in materials costs, though, will require some reallocations within the collections resources.

Library staff positions will be affected as well. Unfortunately and as a last resort, the budget reductions will result in RIFs of 15 full-time employees. In addition, 16 vacant positions have been eliminated, 11 positions have been reduced from full-time to partial time, and three positions previously supported on the General Fund have been transferred to other funding sources. The affected areas are spread across all units (both base positions and from the budgets of hourly positions), with administrative units taking a larger percentage reduction.

We announced these reductions last week in order to give affected staff the maximum possible notice. The cuts will be effective July 1. We are giving affected staff leave time to look for other positions and offering career and personal counseling support to assist them in handling this transition.

We have made every effort to avoid seriously impairing the services in support of teaching and research that is our primary mission. As always, please contact me if you hear from faculty or staff who raise particular concerns so that we may do our best to maintain an appropriate level of academic service. On behalf of the entire Library staff, thank you for your interest, concern and understanding as we adjust to the impacts of this challenging budget situation.

Bill Gosling
Director
Library Administration