NIU’s Graduate Council reported Monday that rising costs and insufficient funds are driving NIU’s libraries into a budget crisis.

Libraries could experience a 10 percent decline in purchasing power if there is no increase in their proposed budget for the fall 1990 semester, said Gordon Rowley, associate director of research services for University Libraries.

Rowley said journals, which makes up almost 50 percent of library material costs, are increasing in price. Subscription costs could increase by as much as 15 percent, he said.

Books, which make up 16 percent of the materials budget costs, will probably also increase in cost, though not as much, Rowley said.

Law Professor Rodolphe de Seife said the lack of funds in recent years has made the law library “disgraceful” and a “Third World library.”

Illinois law schools are in a crisis, he said. Once ranked in the top one-third of American law schools, Illinois law schools are now at the bottom of the list because of insufficient funding, de Seife said.

In other business, Jerrold Zar, dean of the Graduate School, said the school will begin awarding tuition waiver scholarships in order to draw exceptional graduate students.

Zar said the different departments within the Graduate School can use a few scholarships each as inducements.

Before scholarships, the school only offered assistantships to exceptional applicants, he said. Because the numbers of minorities going to graduate school are slipping, Zar said the departments can also give additional scholarships to exceptional minority applicants.