Information Budget 2023

The German Council of Science and Humanities and the German Research Foundation (DFG) recommend that scientific institutions compile an information budget that documents expenditure on the procurement of information as well as on scientific publishing. The budget should be compiled irrespective of whether expenditure is centralized (library budget) or decentralized (e.g. institutes of Forschungszentrum Jülich), and whether financing is provided through basic funds or external funds.

The Central Library (ZB) of Forschungszentrum Jülich has now added details on the information budget to its well-known Open Access Barometer, which serves to document expenditure on journals and journal publications since 2016.

In terms of expenditure, the information budget is divided into three parts:

  • The core part concerns expenditure on the procurement or licensing of books and journals as well as the publication costs involved (Figure 1).
  • This is supplemented in Figure 2 by expenditure on the procurement of other types of media, such as databases, loose-leaf collections, and norms (there are no publication costs in this instance).
  • Figure 3 includes additional expenditure that contributes to the information budget, such as costs relating to personnel, green OA, research data management, translations, and infrastructure for managing literature and producing texts. In the case of research data management, green OA, and translations, personnel costs have been assigned directly. Additional publication-related personnel costs such as publishing consulting and invoice processing are included in “other personnel costs (publishing)”. “Personnel costs (procurement)” relates to personnel costs in the area of procurement in the stricter sense – from document delivery and, proportionately, from the subject specializations (expansion of collections and indexing of literature).

Three additional aspects are taken into account:

  • Expenditure is rounded off by a consideration of publisher-specific costs in Figure 4. The figure includes all expenditure that can be easily attributed to a publisher. This does not include, for example, costs relating to personnel or document delivery.
  • Figure 5 shows the sources of financing for the information budget. The largest items are ZB expenditure on procurement and publications, which is financed from ZB’s own funds (i.e. from ZB’s basic budget), followed by ZB’s project-funded expenditure on publications (DFG funding).
  • Finally, Figure 6 characterizes the information budget in terms of the following criteria: budget responsibility, source of financing, and use of funds.

Further information on the information budget can be found in a publication in the open access journal o-bib. The article written by the head of the Central Library, Dr. Bernhard Mittermaier, outlines the approach to the information budget and includes charts and graphs for 2021.
o-bib. Das offene Bibliotheksjournal – Band 9, Nr. 4 (2022) – Das Informationsbudget – Konzept und Werkstattbericht (in German)

German Council of Science and Humanities – Publications – Recommendations on the Transformation of Academic Publishing: Towards Open Access (Drs. 9477-22), January 2022
Zenodo – DFG Committee on Scientific Library Services and Information Systems (2022) – Open access publication costs: Applications received and decisions made in 2021
JuSER publications portal – Project proposal – Open access publication fees at Forschungszentrum Jülich (OAPKFZJ) 2022–2024
Internet (ZB) – Open Science – Open Access Barometer

Figure 1: Information budget of the Central Library of Forschungszentrum Jülich – Pie chart of expenditure on books and journals in 2023
Figure 2: Information budget of the Central Library of Forschungszentrum Jülich – Pie chart of expenditure on procurement and publication fees (in the stricter sense) in 2023
Figure 3: Information budget of the Central Library of Forschungszentrum Jülich – Pie chart of total expenditure within the scope of the information budget for 2023
Figure 4: Information budget of the Central Library of Forschungszentrum Jülich – Pie chart of publisher-specific fees in the information budget for 2023
Figure 5: Information budget of the Central Library of Forschungszentrum Jülich – Pie chart of the sources of financing for expenditure on procurement and publications in 2023
Figure 6: Information budget of the Central Library of Forschungszentrum Jülich – Bar chart providing a breakdown of the information budget for 2023

The graphs and charts have been published under the Creative Commons licence “Attribution 4.0 International” (CC BY 4.0). Should you require copies of the graphs in higher quality, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Creative Commons – Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Your contact at ZB

Dr. Bernhard Mittermaier
Email: b.mittermaier@fz-juelich.de
Tel.: +49 02461 61-3013
Head of the Central Library

Last Modified: 13.05.2024