S.C. Universities Face Loss of Shared Database Subscriptions

Following a 90% reduction of its funding from the state, an innovative consortium of academic libraries in South Carolina has made drastic cuts in the resources and services it provides, with the prospect of the loss of all of its database subscriptions later this year.

The Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries (PASCAL) provides licensed databases and a rapid book-delivery service to more than 50 campuses statewide. State funding for the consortium was slashed from $2 million to $200,000 for FY2008–09. As a result, PASCAL cancelled its LexisNexis service and cut back its book deliveries from five to three days weekly. On January 1, it dropped its subscriptions to over 800 online titles, including Nature and Science. Access to the remaining core collection of 7,000 titles will continue through the end of the current semester, but without additional funding, the subscriptions will be terminated in July, leaving book delivery as PASCAL’s sole service.

“We got cut up in a big meat cleaver last year,” explained PASCAL Executive Director Rick Moul. In its budget-cutting, the legislature eliminated funding for many below-the-line (or nonrecurring) programs, including the prestigious Spoleto music festival. “We’re lucky to have received any funding at all,” Moul told American Libraries.

PASCAL has tried to plug the gap by assessing service fees to its member institutions for the first time this year. However, Moul said, in light of expected funding cuts to higher education—the governor’s planned budget for next year includes a $32-million budget cut to campuses statewide—such fees are an unlikely long-term solution. Moul added that the consortium is also looking into obtaining grant funding, but called that an unpromising prospect in the current economic climate.

PASCAL’s parent organization, the Commission on Higher Education, is hoping to convince the legislature to restore the funds for FY2009–10 and is seeking the backing of university presidents, whom Moul said are showing strong support for the program. Additionally, a number of student-government bodies and faculty senates have passed resolutions calling for restoration of funding for the consortium.

Providing further ammunition, the draft report (PDF file) of a blue ribbon panel charged with developing an action plan for higher education in the state cites PASCAL as “the best current example for sharing inter-institutional costs for technology in South Carolina.”

“If things weren’t as dire as they are nationally, we’d have a pretty good chance” of convincing the legislature to restore PASCAL’s funding, Moul observed, “but as things stand, I have no idea.” If the state funding remains at its minimal level or is eliminated altogether, “I think that we’ll figure out how to keep some vestige of what we’re doing going,” he said, “but without the money from the state it’s going to be tough sledding to keep it going” in its present form.

Posted on January 14, 2009. Discuss.

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