The recent budget crisis forced Founders Memorial Library to make difficult, but not disastrous cuts in book and serial subscriptions this year.

The basic journals and magazines will remain, but anyone needing to see the latest issue of Soviet Genetics after January will have to take their business elsewhere. It is among the nearly 500 subscriptions to be cancelled.

University Libraries Director Peggy Sullivan said the cuts are relatively small, but are a needed measure to deal with rising costs and maintain other needed services such as data bases.

Sullivan said Founders subscribes to about 14,000 serials each year, including academic journals, magazines and yearbooks. Founders collects mostly serials relating to NIU faculty and curriculum. The collection includes very little, for instance from agriculture or veterinary medicine.

Each academic area was given a dollar amount for cuts in Spring and asked to decide which journals to cancel.

Sullivan said the situation would have been worse except for a one-time $148,000 state grant for materials.

Sullivan said NIU limits its collection to the best journals in each field rather than also automatically including four or five.

“It’s a difference between having a truly comprehensive collection or a substantial collection,” Sullivan said.

Although its priority position has helped insulate the library from drastic cuts, Founders hasn’t escaped the tug-of-war for dollars untouched.

“We aren’t where we should be with the size or quality of the collection,” Sullivan said.