Students combing the stacks at Van Pelt Library may notice they have a little extra breathing room.
The library has cut 2,255 journal subscriptions from its 2004-05 holdings, as journal prices have increased faster than the library's budget.
But the size of the materials budget -- $13.1 million allotted for books, journals, magazines, periodicals, films and electronic resources -- is not to blame, library officials said.
Rather, officials blame big publishing companies, which they say have raised prices as the companies have bought up academic journals over the last two decades.
In 1993, journals accounted for 64 percent of the materials budget. This number has increased to almost 70 percent in the 2005 materials budget.
Publishing giant Reed Elsevier claims 18 percent of the market in science, technology and medical journals. An annual subscription to the chemistry journal Tetrahedron, published by Elsevier, costs the library $31,600.
The Brown University library system has also criticized price increases. However, it has not had to cancel subscriptions since the early 1990s, as its materials budget has kept pace with journals' price increases. The 2005 Brown materials budget stands at $5 million, of which 66 percent is devoted to journals.
As research libraries across the nation decry price increases, Penn's library system is calling for reform through its "Winning Independence" Web site.
Linked to the library system's Web site this September, the site encourages professors to be active on journals' editorial boards and to push for fair pricing policies.
At the heart of the uproar over pricing is frustration -- on the part of the library and some professors -- with publishers' restrictive copy agreements.
Many journal publishers require faculty members to sign over their copyright as a condition for publication.
This prevents professors from submitting published journal articles to online archives such as Penn's Scholarly Commons, which is one way the library can increase its holdings in the face of a limited budget.
But many professors do not scrutinize publishing agreements, as the prestige of being published often outweighs the opportunity to post work online.
"If I send an article to a journal ... I want the referees to like it," History professor Jonathan Steinberg said, adding that copyright agreements have not been an issue for him.
Steinberg said that rising journal prices could be caused by libraries themselves; as more information is archived and accessed electronically, libraries have bought fewer books.
For Physics and Astronomy professor Gary Bernstein, copyright agreements are not a problem because he publishes in the journals of nonprofit professional astronomical societies.
"When the library has complained about outrageously priced journal articles or restrictive practices, these generally arise from privately published journals," he said.
As president of the Penn chapter of The Triple Helix, a national undergraduate journal, Samuel Wang has experience with both writing and publishing.
The College and Engineering junior believes that faculty should have the right to distribute their work in public forums.
However, he says he can understand that journals may want to limit free access in order to build their reputation.
"If professors and journals could come to some kind of consensus, that would be the best case, " he said.
Some have heeded library systems' calls. Several journals now release articles for free online access after a paid-access period.
