Due to a budget shortfall, the MU Libraries will cease ordering books from May 15 until after the beginning of the new fiscal year on July 1:
- Automatic shipments of books via our approval plan will be held until after July 1.
- Patron-initiated ordering from the MERLIN catalog, both online and in print, will be suspended. Orders will resume after July 1.
This shortfall is due to several circumstances:
- The bankruptcy of Swets, the vendor that has handled many of our subscriptions, necessitating additional payment to the journal publishers involved in order to maintain subscriptions. Although we were not as drastically affected as many libraries, the cost to the MU Libraries is about $600,000.
- The 2% reallocation of funds required by the University. (Note: the libraries’ materials budget was not held harmless in assessing the 2%.)
- The necessity of absorbing the cost of some resources formerly paid for by MERLIN, the UM library consortium, which has not received sufficient funds to keep up with inflation.
- Routine inflation of subscription costs.
