Recent federal efforts have aimed to reduce spending and costs associated with research.
Access to high-quality published research – including results from clinical trials, laboratory studies, and detailed descriptions of research methodologies – is an essential foundation for all research programs, as well as for patient care and biomedical education.
As a central administrative service, the Medical Center Library helps cut costs for researchers and Duke as a whole. Rather than researchers purchasing individual articles for as much as $40 - $60 each, our curated collections of journals are available for the whole institution at no additional individual cost.
In 2023, our top journals were used more than 1.5 million times. If these articles were purchased individually, they would have cost the institution more than $63 million. With library subscription costs of just over $2 million per year, this saved the institution more than $60 million dollars.
Our staff carefully select journals and other resources based on both quality metrics and the information needs of faculty, staff, and students. We track institutional usage of journals we subscribe to – as well as many we don't – in order to curate collections that meet the needs of the Duke community. We calculate cost-per-use of articles to ensure that we are delivering value in addition to high-quality information. Our analysis shows that the average cost-per-use of a journal article in our collection is about $2 an article, with some costing as little as $0.09 per use.
Another way we work to protect access to journals and resources across disciplines is to have separate budgets and libraries for different professional schools. Information needs, usage patterns, and costs vary widely by discipline, and it is important that the more expensive and heavily-used journals, such as those in the health sciences, do not encroach upon the budgets for the humanities, where journals may cost less.
Finally, while it is not cost effective for us to license every journal, we can still provide access to articles for you through our interlibrary loan services. Through partnerships with other libraries, we can get a PDF of a requested article within 1-2 days.
As we navigate different budget environments, we will explore new ways of providing access to the resources you need for research, teaching, and patient care. If you have questions or concerns, please contact Megan von Isenburg, Associate Dean, at megan.vonisenburg@duke.edu. If you would like to support access to research by supporting the Medical Center Library, you can make a gift online.