The impact of the economic recession on university library and IT services

• Joint Information Systems Committee

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26 October 2009This UK study shows how academic library and IT services are budgeting for today's economic conditions, but are in need of help to scenario plan for the long term impact of the recession.

The research has highlighted some interesting findings in relation to how the current economic climate is and will impact library and IT services within UK Higher Education. The findings suggest that senior management within IT/library services have experienced fluctuating budgets in the past and have ensured that the impact on services is minimised. However, given the likelihood for deeper financial cuts imposed on these services in 2010/2011, it is clear that services will be impacted unavoidably in a number of ways, such as reduced opening hours, decreased opportunity for developing staff skills and limitations in procuring and providing resources. Such impacts, certainly for libraries, are likely to be compounded by the decreasing value of sterling in an international market for acquisitions, and the ever changing demands of students and academic staff on their services.  

Library and IT services form an essential part of the delivery of learning and teaching, assessment, research and administration within institutions, and consequently it is essential that measures are put in place to protect this. The impact of any cuts is likely to have wider implications on institutions’ delivery of their overall strategic aims such as enhancing the student experience. However, it is not clear what impact the global economic downturn will
have on these services and universities in the longer term five or more years from now; indeed the IT and library managers participating in this research were largely unable to speculate this far ahead. Thus a number of questions remain unanswered; for example, to what extent will access to resources be reduced as subscriptions are cancelled and what impact will this have on future users, will workstations for students and staff be underpowered because replacement cycles are lengthened, will services be able to operate satisfactorily if significant staff redundancies occur?  

ICT can deliver efficiencies in all areas of an institution’s operation, not just library and IT services, and provides an opportunity to help mitigate these impacts. A number of opportunities are at universities’ disposals to realise efficiencies and cost savings; shared services, Green ICT, outsourcing and cloud computing all have the potential to do so. Many institutions are already exploiting these, and tools to help assess impacts and savings have been developed. However, to plan for the future, further work is needed.