Publications Committee News

By Omer Galle, Chair

At the Board Meeting in Chicago, it was noted that there appears to be a decline, over the past year or two, in the number of "institutional" or library subscriptions to our journal, Demography. As you probably know, these institutional subscriptions are an important source of revenue flow into the Association, and it is important that we try to maintain that source if we can.

Several persons on the Board observed that we are in a time of increasingly tight budget restrictions at many of our institutions of higher learning, and this tightness has been manifested in many ways, one of which is the cutting back of library budgets, which in turn entails the cutting back on journal subscriptions.

One of the ways librarians at many universities and colleges determine which of their various journal subscriptions to cancel is to circulate a list of journals to the faculty, asking them which of the journals they want to keep. Many of us have seen such lists circulated, and some of us have always assumed that "someone else" will take care of that task.

If this kind of situation is facing your college or university, I would ask you, on behalf of the Population Association of America, to do all you can to persuade your local library to continue to maintain a subscription to Demography, or indeed, to begin or renew such a subscription if they do not currently subscribe to the journal. Such an act would be of great benefit to the financial health of the Association.