The improvement of library holdings is considered an important matter by the school authorities. The budget for purchasing books this academic year is up NT$8,000,000, from last year’s NT$88,000,000 to NT$96,000,000. Yet, University Librarian Huang Hong-chu says that the current rate of periodicals subscription cannot be maintained, a difficulty she calls “crisis of academic communication”.

Due to the construction of Gymnasium and Foreign Languages Building, all the administrative and academic sections have seen their budgets reduced. However, to achieve the objective of information-oriented education and improve the study environment for teachers and students, Tamkang University still increases library budget by NT$8,000,000, to be spent on printed books, electronic books, printed periodicals, electronic journals, and non-book material.

Huang Hong-chu says that, due to the 10% annul increase in subscription fees of international periodicals, there was a budget deficit of five to six million dollars which had to be supplemented by money originally designated for books and non-book material. Although the budget has been increased for this academic year, all the colleges are still asked to reduce the number of journals they wish to subscribe. The University Librarian stresses that, as higher education is already expensive, the yearly increase in the subscription fees of international periodicals will create a crisis of academic communication, a problem which the entire academic community must take seriously.

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