Shipman explained that most journals used by Education were required primarily by the Education graduate program. The programs that were cut did not have the impact on reducing serial subscriptions that would have offered real savings. Increasing photocopy costs is a possibility, but also problematic as the current mood of the student body is strongly antagonistic to further fee hikes. Switching some subscriptions from paper to electronic formats will not provide assistance in controlling serial costs. Costs for electronic journals may actually increase over paper formats in the short term.
Some publishers tie electronic formats to current subscriptions of paper copies.
There is also confusion in the marketplace on the price of electronic journal subscriptions with great variation from vendor to vendor. The sustainability of back issues for research is problematic as well, for if a vendor stops providing an electronic subscription, the Library is left with nothing as opposed to paper which has been acquired and saved even if a particular journal is stopped. Shipman stated that he preferred example D of the Budget Scenarios, which does not depend on finding additional moneys but delays the cancellation project for a year. Gage commented that he had reservations about delaying the serials cut if one must be done because of the effect on the monographic portion of the budget. Gilkey stated that he does not see a particular advantage in delaying the project either as a few years from now whether or not a journal ended in 1995 or 1996 will not be of great concern.