Refocusing the Library Collection

Overview

At this time of deep structural change for the University, the Concordia Library has been given the mandate to make significant reductions to its operating budget for the 2025/26 academic year. We are undertaking a thorough review of our spending on services and collections, with a view to prioritizing the teaching, learning, and research needs of the University.

Collections background

The collections budget at Concordia is approximately $8 million and allocated as follows:

• Journals: 47% of budget
• Databases: 26%
• Books: 18%
• Media: 5%
• Infrastructure (e.g. Sofia, our catalogue): 4%

We are constantly reviewing this spending and adjusting based on librarian expertise and feedback from the Concordia community. Our goal is to have a responsive, diverse, and sustainable collection that meets the unique needs of our students, faculty, and staff.

Collections costs always increase

Like other academic libraries, Concordia Library enters into multi-year agreements with scholarly publishers, to make available the research used and created by our own scholars. The Library mitigates cost increases to our collections through consortial purchasing. As members of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, a national consortium of 76 universities, and the Partenariat des Bibliothèques universitaires du Québec, a provincial consortium of 19 Quebec universities, we are part of a strong negotiating position with scholarly publishers.

These agreements present two challenges for the Library:

1. These agreements come with an annual price increase, typically in the range of 4–6% (source: 2025 Serials Price Projection Report by EBSCO).
2. These agreements are signed in US dollars, requiring the library to absorb currency fluctuations.

At a moment when there is a significant decrease in our operating budget, Concordia Library needs to make tough decisions, including making cuts to our collections.

Usage analysis

The Library Collections team has undertaken a significant analysis of our print and online collections. In addition to usage data, the Library is also looking at other factors such as resource costs, content duplication, licensing terms, and full text availability. They have collaborated with our subject librarians to determine alternatives to resources that are being cut (as you'll see in the chart below). We have taken care to ensure that the effects of the cuts are shared fairly so that no one group is disproportionally affected.

As you will see below, we have made a recommendation for alternative resources wherever possible.

Immediate and upcoming cancellations

The Library enters into multi-year agreements with publishers, with contract end dates happening at different times throughout the year. As it happens, a certain number of items we have identified to cancel would have renewed on July 1st. To best meet our budget reduction, we must take immediate action. We appreciate that this is a short timeline and are available to support the community in transitioning to use alternative resources. This page will be updated as collections decisions are made.

Cancellations

updated on June 22, 2025

Feedback

Feedback can be sent to Amy Buckland, University Librarian.