Overview
Over the last decade, GW's library budgets have remained flat and our staffing levels have decreased. At the same time, the price of library resources, especially journal and database subscriptions, has skyrocketed. Given GW’s current budget challenges, GW Libraries & Academic Innovation and Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library will make cuts to our collections. These reductions will have an impact on our current subscriptions, and primarily affect access to journals and databases.
The cost of annual journal subscriptions is a long-term problem that will snowball without systemic change. Please read below to learn more about our current situation and what you can do to advocate for your libraries and more stable collections.
Subscriptions budget reductions
Libraries & Academic Innovation
LAI (Gelman, Eckles, and VSTC Libraries) must reduce their subscriptions costs by 6% in FY 26.
Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library
Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library must reduce their subscriptions costs by 10% in FY 26.
How the libraries will meet your research needs
The libraries remain committed to connecting you with the scholarly resources you need for your research, teaching, clinical care, and publishing. We will do this through:
Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
Interlibrary Loan (ILL), a service for GW students, faculty, and staff, is available to provide access to books, book chapters, and articles in resources not available in GW's collections.
ILL is not free to libraries. On average, each ILL request costs $25 - $33 to fulfill. That cost is not currently passed on to Libraries and Academic Innovation users and Himmelfarb users are only charged a nominal fee after their first 30 requests.
We budget for ILL costs each year and will continue to steward these resources to access materials for faculty and students.
Faculty Engagement & Feedback
Faculty partnership is vital in shaping library collections. If you find the libraries are missing a vital resource, please communicate that using the form below. This information will be reviewed by a team of librarians and considered as part of our collections strategy.
You may not be contacted about your feedback unless the team has additional questions or needs clarification. The library keeps a running list of bigger purchase requests and reviews outstanding requests throughout the fiscal year. We continually gather information and weigh requests among other priorities, and maintain contact over the course of the year as we firm up decisions.
This is a collaborative process and the libraries rely on faculty as the experts in their disciplines and departments to provide feedback.
Adding Resources to Library Collections
Annual Subscriptions
Most online journals, newspapers, and databases are made available via annual subscriptions. Because these subscriptions are expensive and longer-term commitments for libraries, adding new resources to GW collections requires a more detailed decision-making process. The libraries keep running lists of requests and review outstanding requests periodically throughout the fiscal year. We gather information about technical and licensing parameters, as well as related academic programs and research activities. Decisions on subscriptions are generally finalized at two points in the year, toward the end of December and the end of March.
One-Time Purchases
Print books and many e-books are selected and purchased on a ‘by title’ basis. The current budget reductions have less impact on our ability to acquire new titles because books are a much smaller percentage of our total collections budget and because we can align our title selections to the funds available in a specific fiscal year.
Learn more about the LAI's strategy for collecting
Learn more about Himmelfarb's collections development policy
Leveraging Open Access Content
We are committed to supporting Open Access as an alternative to for-profit publishing. The publishing industry’s profit margins are sustained by the labor of the scholarly community, subsidized by their home institutions, who create and disseminate knowledge and give time as editors and peer reviewers. This scholarly work, produced for free, is then placed behind publisher paywalls, with the cost to access largely paid by academic libraries. This system is out of step with our values and our budget.
GW supports Open Access through institutional memberships, support of external OA initiatives and projects, development and maintenance of GW's institutional repositories ScholarSpace and Health Sciences Research Commons, publication of OA journals for GW faculty and students, and support for the GW Open Access Resolution.
Learn more about Open Access:
- LAI's initiatives for supporting open access
- GW’s Open Access Resolution
- Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) primer on Open Access
Leveraging Partnerships and Affiliations
Partnerships such as the Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC) and the NorthEast Research Libraries Consortium (NERL) allows GW to join with other research libraries to coordinate, consolidate, and share collections while also negotiating the best possible licensing terms and prices for resources. We rely on these strategic associations to provide the widest array of resources to our users.
If you find the libraries are missing a vital resource, please communicate that using the form below.
Why are cuts necessary?
GW has announced two cuts to the 2025-26 (FY26) budget. The first was an across-the-board 3% reduction; the second was different for each department/school.
Over the past decade both Libraries & Academic Innovation and Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library have taken significant cuts to their staffing budgets. At the same time, collections (subscriptions) budgets have remained flat or been reduced. During that time, annual subscriptions prices have far outpaced inflation. In 2026, the price increase for general subscriptions is anticipated to be 5.5-6.5% and the increase for health sciences journals is anticipated to be 6-8%.
LAI staffing over the last decade
In 2014, GW Libraries provided only library services with its 113 librarians and staff members. In 2016, Libraries and Academic Innovation (LAI) was formed when several functions* were added in addition to traditional library services, including: faculty development (at that time, called the University Teaching & Learning Center), central support for online learning, the Center for Undergraduate Fellowships and Research, tutoring and academic support (now called Academic Commons), and the Instructional Technology Lab. When all of those services were added in, total staffing was 127. Since then, staffing for all of LAI's areas has decreased to a total of 113 people. LAI is now doing significantly more work with the same number of people employed as in 2014.
*Staffing numbers exclude Academic Technologies, which was folded into LAI in 2016, but which moved into GWIT in 2020.
Himmelfarb staffing over the last decade
In 2016, Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library provided library services with 27 staff members. Since then, Himmelfarb’s staff has been reduced to its current level of 17 staff members, a 37% decrease in staffing. Himmelfarb Library staff continues to build, maintain and provide access to collections, deliver research and reference services, teach classes, and develop and maintain a robust technology infrastructure to support our users, although we now strive to accomplish this work with a greatly reduced staff.
The exorbitant price of subscriptions
Even those scholars who are actively involved in peer review and editing often aren't aware of the price GW pays to provide access to those journals. While contracts often preclude us from sharing the actual price of our subscriptions, below are some equivalents. These are annual prices, so GW is purchasing the equivalent of a yacht, a house, and a private island every year, plus the prices of the many other subscriptions we maintain.
One Year of Elsevier
GW’s annual subscription to Elsevier / Science Direct (includes ClinicalKey products) costs about the same amount as the purchase of a 7.3 acre private island in Belize.
One Year of SpringerNature
GW's annual subscription to SpringerNature costs the equivalent to the purchase price for a used, 50-foot yacht with 4 staterooms.
One Year of Wiley
GW's annual subscription to Wiley Publishers' resources costs about the same as purchasing a 3 bedroom, 4 bathroom, 2,378 square foot home in the D.C. suburb of Rockville, Maryland.
One Year of Sage Publishing
GW's annual subscription to Sage Publishing costs the equivalent of a 24-day trip around the world for 2 people on a private jet.
If you find the libraries are missing a vital resource, please communicate that using the form below.
How are we making these decisions?
As professional librarians, we are continuously assessing our collections to ensure that we’re making the best use of the university’s resources and making decisions based on usage and cost per use. Assessment, negotiation, and cancellations are regular parts of our work. The difference at this time is the size of the budget deficit, the depth of the cuts, and the scale of our review.
To meet the current budget reductions we cannot rely on usage alone. We are going to have to cancel access to resources that are popular and getting used. In order to make these difficult decisions, GW librarians have undertaken a comprehensive review of our online subscriptions.
Himmelfarb Library’s decision-making process incorporated assessment of how specific resources supported health sciences research, learning, and patient care, departmental and school feedback, and cost and usage data. Titles with a low overall annual usage and/or a high cost-per-use were likely targets for cancellation.
Both libraries communicate frequently with the Faculty Senate Libraries Committee about how budget decisions are affecting our services and collections.
We are continuously assessing our collections to ensure that we’re making the best use of the university’s resources, making decisions based on usage and cost per use.
Since August 2025, professional librarians have undertaken a qualitative assessment of our online subscriptions. Some factors being considered:
- Relevance to Curriculum and Research
- Depth and Breadth of Coverage
- Overlap/Comparison with other databases/resources
- Impact of Cancellation
- Unique Features or Strengths
- Known Gaps or Limitations
- Overall Value to the Institution
The libraries remain committed to connecting you with the scholarly resources you need through services such as Interlibrary Loan (ILL).
If you find the libraries are missing a vital resource, please communicate that using the form below.
How can I advocate for long-term solutions?
Utilize Library Resources to Learn More About Faculty's Role in Academic Publishing
Both Libraries & Academic Innovation and Himmelfarb provide resources and services to assist scholars throughout the research and publishing process.
- Learn more about academic publishing, your rights, and ORCID.
- Contact the Scholarly Communications Team for consultations or questions on your own work.
- Learn more about your author's rights.
- View a guide to Open Access publishing.
- See frequently asked questions about Article Processing Charges.
- View A guide to Open Access publishing.
- Learn about Open Access and paying for Article Processing Charges.
- Explore Scholarly Publishing including researcher profiles, predatory publishing, open access publishing, author rights, and measuring your impact.
- Understand the publishing lifecycle, copyright, self-archiving, and promoting your research.
- Contact the Scholarly Publishing Librarian.
Embrace Open Access (OA) Publishing Models
Faculty actions can shift the market away from expensive, subscription-based journals.
Publishing:
Know Your Rights
Read your author agreements and don’t give up your author rights unknowingly. GW Libraries provides resources and services to assist scholars throughout the research and publishing process.
Educate Yourself on Article Processing Charges (APCs)
Article Processing Charges (APCs) are fees that publishers charge authors to make their works open access. APCs are a component of a publishing model that shifts costs towards authors. There are several Open Access models that don’t require an Article Processing Charge. You can also see what open access options and restrictions various journals have by searching for them in Open Policy Finder.
Choose Open Access Journals
Prioritize publishing in Diamond OA journals that do not charge authors an Article Processing Charge.
Use GW's Institutional Repository (Green OA)
Deposit final, peer-reviewed manuscripts (the accepted version) into a GW institutional repository, GW Scholarspace or the Health Sciences Research Commons, even if the article is published in a traditional journal. This is often allowed by publisher agreements after an embargo period.
Editorial/Reviewer Service:
Support Non-Profit Venues
Direct your time and expertise as an editor or peer reviewer to non-commercial, society, university-press, or fully open-access journals.
Resign from High-Cost Boards
In extreme cases, publicly step down from the editorial boards of journals published by commercial publishers with excessively high profit margins.
Get Involved in GW Shared Governance
Faculty Senate Libraries Committee (FSLC):
Support and communicate your needs to the FSLC, your library advocates within faculty governance.
Promotion and Tenure (P&T) Requirements:
Faculty can advocate for different aspects of P&T reform, including:
Broaden Evaluation Criteria
The prestige economy of publishing, where top-tier commercial journals are required for career advancement, fuels the high prices. Advocate for P&T guidelines to value publishing in Non-commercial, society-based, or high-quality open-access journals.
Value Other Research Outputs
Encourage P&T committees to consider other scholarly contributions, such as:
- Publishing Open Educational Resources (OER).
- Creating and sharing open research data and software.
- Evidence of broader public impact and engagement.
If you find the libraries are missing a vital resource, please communicate that using the form below.
