Statistics: Reuse FY23 e-resources stats for Regents budget report in FY24

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Legend: not started IN PROGRESS STALLED decided

Recommendation

Temporarily (for this year only) reuse FY23 e-resources data for two data points in the Academic Libraries chapter of the 2025-26 UC Budget for Current Operations (“Regents budget detail”): Average electronic holdings on each campus and Average ebooks on each campus. FY23 data is the most recent previous year’s data available, and will be used in lieu of current (FY24) data for this year only.

This recommendation is constrained to reusing only FY23 e-resources data for these two data points in the forthcoming 2025-26 UC Budget for Current Operations (issued in 2024/FY25); all other data in the 2025-26 Regents budget detail report will draw on the FY24 statistics compiled by the AASA-PT and CDL Systemwide Library Planning team. 

Endorsement of this recommendation rests with CoUL, which authors the Academic Libraries chapter of the annual Regents budget detail report.

Impact

Impacts are minimal for all stakeholder groups. The two data points affected by this decision, Average electronic holdings on each campus and Average ebooks on each campus, are reported as rounded averages, not as exact numbers, in the Regents budget detail report. No other UC Libraries statistics or reporting obligations are impacted by this decision.

Background & reasoning

Each year, CDL’s Systemwide Library Planning team partners with CoUL to author the Academic Libraries chapter of the UC Budget for Current Operations (“Regents budget detail”). The data included in this chapter is updated each year based on the most recently-available UCL annual statistics as well as inputs from CDL services. In some past years, data from a previous year is reused in order to finalize the chapter by the deadline set by the UCOP Budget Analysis and Planning office. The Regents budget detail report uses rounded, not exact statistics on library collections and services.

While preparing the FY24 UC Libraries statistics, the AASA-PT noticed significant changes in the e-resources statistics compared to the previous year (FY23); the team is investigating the underlying causes of this change in consultation with local experts.* This investigation will not be concluded in time to meet the deadline for submitting data for the Regents Budget Detail report set by UCOP BAP without reusing FY23 data for Average electronic holdings on each campus and Average ebooks on each campus.

* The team’s preliminary assessment is that the change in e-resources statistics is likely due to additional criteria applied to the build for Network Zone statistics in FY24 that bring the UC Libraries statistics reporting into alignment with ACRL, IPEDS, and ARL reporting requirements. These criteria were not applied retroactively to the FY23 UC Libraries statistics, but were applied to the FY24 build and will be applied to future builds. The team continues to investigate the change to rule out other possible explanations. Structural limitations of the Alma Analytics system prevent the team from reproducing historical statistics for e-resources, slowing the investigation.

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