The Oregon State University Library’s collections funding comprises Education and General (E&G) annual budget allocations and supplementary additions from endowments, gifts, and grants. Stewardship of the Libraries’ collections budget focuses on the research, teaching and learning mission of Oregon State University.

The Library’s collections budget supports the acquisition of all materials covered by this policy:  outright purchases, subscription access, borrowed resources that may incur fees, discovery tools, and participation in various collaborative print and digital repositories. This budget also supports professional memberships that confer various levels of access to materials, their preservation, and tools for managing the collections.

The Library collections budget balances external factors such as journal subscription inflation costs or new academic program library materials costs with annual budget allocations. Annual budget allocations often do not keep pace with subscription inflation costs or the cost of new program materials. Therefore, new subscriptions can usually only be added when funding is released via subscription cancellations or by securing a supplementary funding source.

The collections budget is administered by the collection council in consultation with library employees and the Dean of the Libraries.

This policy was last reviewed February 2023.