The 2025/26 subscription review list is now available for student, faculty, and staff input.
In order to meet this year's cancellation target of $100,000, the library is asking for feedback on a list of potential and current subscriptions identified as potentials for cancellation. Students, faculty, and staff are invited to review the list and provide input on which titles to keep, which to cancel, and which to add. This cancellation target is based on ongoing annual increases to library subscription costs, which must be managed within a static acquisition budget.
Existing subscriptions have been added to the list based on a variety of quantitative and qualitative criteria and may be cancelled—or potentially cancelled and replaced by new titles—based on the feedback received. Students, faculty, and staff have until the last Friday of October to review these title lists and submit feedback via a survey. Faculty, staff, and students may also continue to submit requests for new subscriptions, which will feed into next year’s review.
Provide feedback on the Subscription Cancellation List via the Subscription Review Feedback Form.
Request a new subscription via the New Subscription Request Form
To help guide the university through this process, subject librarians will be available to meet to answer questions and hear your feedback. We hope you will take every opportunity--individual or departmental--to communicate your needs.
In early spring, the Subscription Rationalization Working Group will examine the feedback and decide which subscriptions will be cancelled, and whether any will be added. We will continue to communicate updates via the Subscription Review site; the Library blog; reports to programs/faculty; and through email announcements. All subscription changes will be announced before the end of the Winter semester. If you have any questions, please reach out to your subject librarian or contact the Collections & Acquisitions Librarian.
In 2024-2025, the Subscription Rationalization Working Group created a methodology to holistically evaluate our subscriptions in alignment with the university’s values of academic excellence, experiential learning and discovery, inclusiveness and diversity, community, and integrity. The methodology was based on Western Washington University Libraries' Subscription Review as well as Durrant, S. (2022). Using an Evaluation Grid to Holistically Assess Library Databases. Collection Management, 47(1), 20–36. The initial review involves building a portfolio of criteria that go beyond cost-per-use to capture a more complete picture of each subscription. The criteria include quantitative metrics like annual price increase, overlap with other resources, as well as qualitative metrics like program correlation, accessibility to users with disabilities, usability of the resource, and publisher commitment to Open Access. In addition, the methodology takes into account the differences in format between subscription types, as a journal package is very different from a collection of streaming videos, ebook package, or a statistical dataset. Each format includes custom criteria, but each adds up to 100 points--allowing us to make comparisons across hundreds of diverse subscriptions. A complete list of the quantitative and qualitative criteria used to generate the preliminary scores can be found on the subscription evaluation criteria page.
Throughout summer and fall, library staff collect data on subscriptions. Each component of the data contributes a number of points towards a resource’s final score. Librarians use the lowest-scoring resources to generate a preliminary, draft cancellation list to offset whatever dollar amount is needed to balance the budget. Each subscription’s score will be included on the draft cancellation list.
These scores are just the first stage in our decision-making process and are supplemented by the critical feedback stage of our holistic methodology: qualitative feedback gathered throughout fall and winter in consultation with university stakeholders.
January - March
April - May
June
August - October
November
late November-December
