The Razor's Edge: Louisiana's State Budget and the Serials Crisis of 2010–2012

Offered as a piquant contrast to strategy sessions that presume a surfeit of resources, this presentation focuses on coping with massive budget cuts to higher education and libraries in one of the poorest states in the union. Sara Zimmerman focused on the response to the funding emergency and the long-range strategies involved in gaining financial and political support to weather the coming storm of 2011. Karen Niemla played a critical role in publicizing the LOUIS emergency and discussed how Web 2.0 tools provided an economical and effective means of communicating the value of libraries. Michael Matthews discussed the long-term effects of shrinking academic journal collections and how academic libraries are adjusting their collection development policies to cope with the prospect of vanishing resources.