Abstract
The Colorado School of Mines Library is a small, specialized institution that grants both undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering and the applied sciences. In the 1980s, the school’s increased emphasis on research created a greater demand for expensive, STM journals. However, the library materials budget did not grow to keep up with this demand or, even in some years, with annual journal inflation. As a result, several rounds of journal cuts were made each year, which began to severely impact the journal collection. The faculty urged the library to use an allocation formula to divide the money to be spent on journal subscriptions. Although in the past the library was opposed to allocation formulas, beginning in 1996 the library agreed to a 3-year experiment with an allocation formula that factored in student FTE, research volume per department, and the relative subscription costs per discipline. While the formula brought some positive results initially, it failed to live up to expectations in the second year of the experiment, and is not likely to be continued.