Library Budget
How the Library’s Budget Works
The UC Davis Library’s annual budget supports a wide range of services, collections and online resources, and expertise that enable the university’s research, education, clinical, and public engagement missions.
The library also operates two facilities: Shields Library in Davis and Blaisdell Medical Library in Sacramento. The Mabie Law Library (part of the UC Davis School of Law) and the Cadet Hand Library at UC Davis’ Bodega Marine Laboratory operate separately, though affiliated students and faculty have full access to UC Davis Library content.
Expenditures
The library spends approximately:
- 60% of its budget on personnel
- 30% on collections, including online resources (journals, databases, media, books, etc.)
- 10% on operating expenses and required campus assessments
More than 60% of the library’s collections budget is invested in UC systemwide licenses with publishers (e.g., for scholarly journal subscriptions), which all the UC libraries negotiate collectively to get the best possible pricing.
- Collections include print materials and online access to journals, news sources, research databases, multimedia and clinical tools
- Personnel includes the librarians, information professionals, managers, and staff who make the library’s collections and facilities accessible and usable, and support teaching and learning, research and clinical care
- Assessments & Operations include IT infrastructure, supplies, travel/professional development, facilities costs, and campus assessments and fees
Funding Sources
The library’s funding sources comprise annual campus funding allocations (96%), philanthropic gifts, contracts and grants, and other external revenue.
With those resources, the library must balance increased expenses — such as the inflationary costs of journal subscriptions, or the need to purchase library materials to support new academic programs — with campus budget allocations that have remained flat for more than a decade.
2025-2026 Budget Reductions
As part of ongoing campuswide budget reductions to address UC Davis’ structural budget deficit, the UC Davis Library is now facing an additional 8% cut — a reduction of nearly $2M to our annual operating budget — with the first half of the cut in FY25/26 and the second half in FY26/27. These new reductions come on the heels of several years of budget cuts assigned by campus since 2021.
To address these successive waves of budget reductions, the library has already eliminated more than $2.58M from our budget over the last five years by tightening operations wherever feasible, increasing revenue, and reducing our employee headcount.
While the financial context is challenging, our approach to managing budget reductions is strategic: we are focusing our more limited resources on preserving the services and collections that matter most to the UC Davis community.
Our Core Commitments
Even in this constrained budget environment, the library remains committed to:
- Access: Providing access to information resources that enable UC Davis faculty, students, and clinicians to teach, learn, and conduct their research.
- Information Resources: Building collections that support UC Davis’ unique disciplinary strengths.
- Technology: Helping campus understand and utilize evolving technologies that are reshaping how people access and use information today.
- Community Space: Activating the library as a “third space” where students find inspiration, community and belonging, and opportunities for serendipitous and informal learning.
- Partnership: Remaining an active, visible, and engaged partner across campus life and the broader community.
What to Expect in 2025-2026
Collections and Online Resources
As part of these budget reductions, the library must cut at least $700,000 (or 7%) of its annual spending on collections and online resources.
In deciding which information resources to cut, the library takes a number of factors into consideration, including:
- Usage, while seeking to avoid bias against disciplines with a smaller user base.
- Cost per use and cost per title.
- Whether alternative access options are available (e.g., online/electronic vs. print; copies elsewhere in the UC system).
- Uniqueness. To stretch resources systemwide, we may divest from resources with duplicate copies within the UC system. By the same rationale, we prioritize areas of leadership for UC Davis, since other campus libraries are less likely to have these resources available for shared use.
To address required budget reductions, subscription cuts are being made this year and next at both the UC system and the local (UC Davis) level.
News Media
- NYTimes.com access will be discontinued effective July 1, 2026
- Economist.com access will be discontinued effective November 1, 2027
Scholarly Journals
We are canceling subscriptions to about 320 journals/serials.
- To minimize the impact on our campus user community, the library prioritized discontinuing print subscriptions to journals and serials if they are also available online — either for free (open access) or through one of the library’s subscription packages. Search for the title in UC Library Search and click “View Online.”
- We are also discontinuing selected online journal subscriptions that are less frequently used, based on library usage data.
View the list of canceled titles as of October 1, 2025.
- Most cancellations will be effective January 1, 2026.
- See FAQs below for alternative ways to access these resources.
- There will be more cuts. The list will be updated quarterly (January – April – July – October).
Local Funds for Open Access Publishing
The library will discontinue our local open access publishing funds this academic year. We recognize that these programs have been deeply valued by UC Davis researchers who want to publish open access and regret that budget pressures have forced us to take this step. UC’s systemwide open-access publishing agreements are not affected. Authors are encouraged to continue taking advantage of these agreements and may contact the library’s Scholarly Communication Officer Michael Ladisch (mladisch@ucdavis.edu) with any questions.
- The UC Davis Library’s Open Access Fund for journal articles will end at noon on January 30, 2026. This fund has supported UC Davis-affiliated authors who publish articles or book chapters in fully open access journals or books (those in which all articles or chapters are published open access) that are not covered by an existing UC systemwide open access publishing agreement.
- Please note that UC’s systemwide open access publishing agreements — which cover nearly 60% of journal articles — are unaffected by this change. We encourage authors publishing in these journals to continue taking advantage of these agreements to make their research open access.
- The library’s Davis Open Access Book Fund was discontinued on October 15, 2025. Since 2018, the fund enabled UC Davis authors and editors to publish 24 books open access, increasing the visibility of UC Davis research in the humanities and social sciences and making these titles available for a wider readership around the world.
- Other options for open access book support: The University of California libraries will launch a systemwide pilot program to support UC-affiliated authors who choose to publish their monographs open access with UC Press and Duke University Press. Contact the library’s Scholarly Communication Officer Michael Ladisch (mladisch@ucdavis.edu) for more information.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, you can still suggest a book, journal or other resource through the usual channels. As always, we may not be able to purchase every item suggested, but in many cases we already have it or can get it for you as a purchase or as an interlibrary loan.
Materials not directly available through the UC Davis Library can be accessed in a number of ways, depending on the resource.
- Read online. Print serials and books may also be available electronically via the journal’s website or UC Library Search. Some content may be available open access. Simply search for the title in UC Library Search and click “View Online.”
- Request a PDF. For 98% of journal articles, a PDF can be delivered to you via email within one business day. Learn how to request articles or book chapters.
- Request a book from another library via interlibrary loan.
- Public libraries offer free access to popular resources such as NYTimes.com. For example, see information from the Yolo County Library and Sacramento Public Library.
Still having trouble finding what you need? Contact the library for suggestions about other ways to get the materials you need.
The answer is simple: cost. Institutional access to these news sites is based on our campus population (the size of our user base). Our license with NYTimes.com alone was nearly $40,000 per year. For a single publication, that’s a lot.
New York Times content can still be accessed through the library’s Current Newspapers database, or through your local public library (see FAQ above).
UC Davis is comparable to other UC campus libraries in how we apportion our financial resources between collections, personnel and operational expenses. As a group, the UC libraries generally spend a lower percentage of our budgets on collections than other university libraries since we generate significant cost savings by negotiating collectively for journal subscriptions and other information resources.
However, the library’s total budget is already lean — so much so, in fact, that university libraries serving similar size campuses typically have twice as many personnel.
Your feedback is valuable to us. Please direct general questions or comments to librarybudget@ucdavis.edu and a member of our team will get back to you.
For assistance with a particular title or resource, contact a librarian or our interlibrary loan team.