Little wonder that our visitors constantly praise the library as one of the Centre's most valuable resources. Like other scientific libraries throughout the world, however, the ICTP library currently faces financial pressures marked by steep annual increases in the price of journal subscriptions. For the ICTP library, the financial pressures created by this chronic escalation in subscription fees have been compounded by inflation and unfavourable exchange rates. The latter further drain the library's purchasing power because most scientific publications are priced in US dollars or Sterling pounds. In total, the library spends about 80 percent of its annual budget on subscription renewals.
Publishers justify their increases by citing rising production costs.
They point out that journals have increased their page counts as scientific output grows and new features are introduced. At the same time, the number of subscribers to scientific journals is declining, partially in response to rising prices. As a result, increases in production costs must be spread over a smaller subscriber base. Price increases imposed by non-profit publishers have not been as steep as those imposed by commercial publishers. But that provides little comfort to libraries.