The free flow of scholarly information, the lifeblood of scholarly inquiry and creativity, is being interrupted. Fewer scholarly publications are available to scholars worldwide. Year after year, libraries are reducing their journal and monograph collections, even though the production of scholarly information grows exponentially. As a consequence, the scholars on your campus, their colleagues around the world, and their graduate students have access to less and less of the scholarly output each year. Smaller university and college libraries have experienced similar cuts.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the situation is far worse in other parts of the world.
But what's happening behind the scenes is even more disturbing. Giant corporations put profits and the stockholders who demand them first. Mergers cause prices to rise even higher as competition decreases. In Point More importantly, scholars are losing control of the system that should exist solely to serve them, other researchers, and students throughout the world. Their research, supported by your institutions and by grants, is given to publishers who then sell it back to their library, sometimes at unjustifiable prices.