Scholarly Resources: Acquisitions & Cancellations

In Spring and Summer 2024, the Libraries prepared for Phase 2 of a cost reduction strategy designed to navigate the university-wide, two-year budget cuts. Phase 2 focused on (a) databases with overlapping content and functionality, and (b) large journal packages. After analyzing price and usage statistics and considering all faculty input received, we have decided to move forward with a small number of database cancellations and journal package restructurings. 

Journal Cancellations

The subscription cancellations listed here will take effect on or shortly after January 1, 2025. All pre-2025 content will remain in our collections. 

• FY25 journal subscription cancellation list (Excel file viewable by anyone in George Mason University's Microsoft 365 environment.)

Mason researchers can still access articles from cancelled journals via several channels.

• Backfile: Pre-2025 content from some cancelled journals will remain in our collections.
• Article Express: Our pilot near-instant PDF delivery service, Article Express, is available to Mason faculty and graduate students.
• Interlibrary loan: Available to all Mason community members may place an interlibrary loan for articles not in our collections.
• Open Access: Several cancelled subscriptions also contain high percentages of open access articles. 

For more information about Elsevier cancellations, see the Elsevier Journals page of this guide.

Database cancellations

As of November 2024, the Libraries have confirmed the following online database subscription cancellations for Fiscal Year 2025.  

Throughout the year, further cancellations may also be necessary where vendors require unacceptable annual price increases or will not agree to the license terms Mason requires as a public research university. Once all cost savings are finalized, we will share the distribution of cancellations by subject area. 

We are grateful to the many faculty members who completed our surveys, participated in our town halls, and attended other presentations. Many thanks, too, to the academic units and other groups who invited library representatives to speak at their meetings. We carefully considered all your comments and we are in the process of reaching out to individual faculty members who we know will be impacted by specific cancellations.  

If you have questions about alternative resources available to you post-cancellation, please reach out to your subject librarian. 

In Fall 2023, the Libraries completed Phase 1 of our strategy for meeting FY24-FY25 cost reduction targets. Phase 1 focused on routine curation, that is, canceling subscriptions with low return on investment based on a variety of factors, such as minimal usage, misalignment with current research and teaching needs, and availability of identical or similar content via more cost-effective channels. As part of this curation, we are also ending any print subscriptions for which we have robust online access, as many universities have done since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Finally, the lists below also include resources cancelled due to problematic changes in the terms of electronic resource license agreements.

The subscription cancellations identified in Phase 1 take effect on or around January 1, 2024.

• Online database cancellation list
• Electronic journal cancellation list
• Print cancellation list

These cancellation lists are viewable by anyone in George Mason University's Microsoft 365 environment.

FY2023 Cancellations

In Fiscal Year 2023, the Libraries' budget was flat. As our subscription costs inflate by 2-10% per year, a flat budget reduces our buying power by several hundred thousand dollars. Subscription cancellations made in FY23 fell within the scope of our routine curation practices, with resources cancelled based on extremely low usage, availability of robust equivalents to the cancelled resource, extremely high price increases (>10%), and/or problematic changes to license terms.

FY 2023 online resource cancellations