May 7, 2004

Response to read anything good lately?

The Laboratory Director has begun an ambitious initiative to reduce the cost of doing business in fiscal year 2004 and 2005. The Research Library, along with other G&A organizations, has been asked to support this effort by implementing mid-year budget reductions. We have made the difficult decision to suspend new book purchases for the remainder of the current fiscal year, as well as postponing computer equipment expenditures, which support our digital collections, and freezing staff positions. To minimize the impact to Library users in meeting these budget constraints, our priorities reflect our desire to maintain an excellent journal collection, which therefore required other difficult trade-offs to be made. This decision was further constrained by the limited flexibility available at mid-year. We believe this course of action will maintain our excellent journal collection and the electronic delivery of journal articles and other digital materials to the user's desktop. We regret the inconvenience that this causes for our customers.

--Rick Luce, Research Library Group Leader