Society benefits from the increased knowledge, and libraries serve a major role in disseminating that knowledge. But individual scientists also benefit greatly. The publishing of an article serves to benefit the career of the publishing scientist. Scientists also benefit individually from the publications of other scientists, as these help to direct their research efforts and thereby benefit their career paths. In view of the benefits individual researchers obtain from scholarly publishing, the burden of the costs should not be so disproportionately placed on libraries.
Libraries are in fact acting to reduce the costs they bear.
In the longer term we are making efforts to network, and to influence copyright policy, scientists' choices of publishing venues, and other aspects of the scientific publishing game. But in the short term, when the chips are down and a library is faced with a budget that cannot keep up with serial costs, the library must act alone in the here and now, and the only choice is to cancel subscriptions. The University of Calgary Libraries were faced with this choice this year. We had been increasingly relying on soft monies to supplement our base budget, and these were much reduced this year. With the price increases we are presently receiving, we will have to make major cuts again next year.