The Japan Association of National Universities conducted a questionnaire survey of 86 national universities nationwide in order to understand and organize the current status of each university library and the status of electronic journal contracts, and announced the survey results.
In recent years, the prices of academic journals have soared, and it is difficult to make necessary and sufficient contracts, especially for electronic journals of overseas publishers, and the high article processing charges are putting pressure on faculty research costs and university finances. Improving the journal environment of the university is an issue.
Therefore, the Japan Association of National Universities conducted a questionnaire survey to understand and organize the ideas of the entire university regarding the current state of electronic journal contracts and future efforts of each university in order to improve these issues.According to the survey, "magazine and e-journal contract status" shows that about half of the universities are increasing the cost of purchasing books while the operating subsidy and the university budget are decreasing.For e-journals, 34 universities increased the number of available titles and 50 universities decreased the number of available titles.
84 universities consider "the effect of rising prices of electronic journals on the university budget" to be "quite serious" or "serious", and the priority of library material expenses (including electronic journal expenses) in the university budget is also , 83 universities consider it "most important" or "important", and it was found that there is a strong sense of crisis about the rise in the price of electronic journals.In addition, 40 universities answered that access to the necessary academic information was "difficult" or "extremely difficult", and there is concern that the research environment will deteriorate.
Regarding "contracts", each university is considering using usage statistics and questionnaire surveys so that it can contract electronic journals according to demand, but due to the increase in the price of electronic journals, package contracts are made to improve cost efficiency. In addition to efforts to curb price increases by making multi-year contracts, some universities are considering downgrading packages and shifting to individual title contracts and ppv (pay per view).
