Sophomore Ashley Hoover studies at the Chester Fritz Library. The library’s online database subscriptions will soon expire. Photo by Chester Beltowski/The Dakota Student.

More than half a million dollars in funding for the Chester Fritz Library will soon be lost.

A committee consisting of staff from different university departments is working to figure out the best way to handle the loss of resources.

“To call this a budget cut would be a misnomer,” said Wilbur Stolt, director of libraries at UND and member of the Chester Fritz Library committee. “The provost no longer has access to funds that were available in the past.”

The library used to have access to an estimated $300,000 in supplemental funding from the provost’s office to meet its needs, in addition to library endowment funds.

Stolt does not know exactly how much funding the library will lose, but he projects it will be anywhere from $500,000 to $750,000.

Stolt said the committee is identifying online databases used the least by students and staff so the library can save money by unsubscribing. The information would still be accessible by inter-library loan options, but it would not be accessible as quickly.

“Reducing intellectual content available to students and faculty will limit, in some respects, immediacy of information, but going forward, we will have alternate methods for accessing that information,” Stolt said.

The university cannot afford to keep all of its online subscriptions any longer because, in recent years, the prices of online databases have increased four to seven percent per year.

“There has been a major recession the last 10 years, and nobody has money, so it makes sense that this is happening,” said UND history professor Bill Caraher.

Wilbur Stolt agreed UND certainly is not the only university dealing with this issue.

“In past years in the U.S., budgets have gotten tighter, affecting other libraries as well,” Stolt said.

The committee has been working for the past six months and is hoping to finalize its decisions by May. It would like to notify vendors it is changing its subscriptions before the new fiscal year starts on July 1.

It is still uncertain what steps the library will have to take with its budget if the databases do not eliminate enough spending.

UND Student Senator Shaina Lawrence said she was surprised to hear about the library’s budget changes.

“I guess it makes sense because online subscriptions are getting really expensive, and with the library’s budget being reduced, they need to make up the money somehow,” Lawrence said. “It is sad because databases are a good source of information for professors who do a lot of research and writing papers. I am surprised since our university is an academic and research institution.”

UND history professor Gordon Iseminger expressed even more disappointment than Lawrence. He said the history professors will only be allocated $200 to buy new books next year, which is enough to buy about three books.

“With the library losing a good amount of money, this will cut into the flesh. I don’t see how they will afford to keep their staff,” he said.

Iseminger thought it was suspicious how funding for other areas in the university, such as sports, are not being cut, yet the library has to take a hit.

“The heart of our university, the library, is being changed,” Iseminger said. “What is a university without a library?”

Emmy Erbes is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected].