Sales Tax Expected to Cost School, Public Libraries $4 Million

The new California sales tax on periodicals will cost the state’s university and public libraries more than $4 million this year in unforeseen levies on magazines and academic journals, officials said this week.

UCLA alone will face a $300,000 bill and the Los Angeles County library system will pay more than $100,000.

The tax, enacted to help reduce the state’s recent budget deficit, is expected to particularly damage the state’s most prestigious university research collections.

Some specialized academic journals can cost as much as $10,000 a year for a subscription.

Those libraries already are reeling from budget cuts, higher periodical costs, and a weak dollar in figuring foreign exchange rates for the many scientific journals now published in Europe and Asia.

Karin Wittenborg, UCLA associate university librarian, said inflation and other increases have eroded her buying power by 40% over the past several years, even before the tax levy of 8.25% in Los Angeles County.

“There’s not much we can do about it, except cut the number of journals we buy,” said Don Bosseau, librarian at San Diego State University, which faces a $100,000 sales-tax bill. “We’ve already cut 16% of the titles we purchase, down to 10,000 from about 12,000. And for the past five years, the state hasn’t provided enough money to cover the high inflation, 20% or more, in some journal prices, let alone the additional costs through the tax.”

The nine-campus University of California system will pay more than $1.7 million for fiscal year 1991-92. Among the campuses: UC Berkeley and UC Davis both face a $275,000 tab, UC San Diego $182,000, UC Irvine $181,000, UC Santa Barbara $180,000, and UC Riverside $85,000. Stanford University will pay between $250,000 and $300,000 in new taxes.

The 20-member California State University system will pay an additional $1 million, with the tab at individual campuses depending on the number of students and the size of the library collections. SDSU’s $100,000 is at the high end; smaller campuses, such as Cal State Dominguez Hills, will pay about $29,500.

Even the 107-campus state community college system, whose libraries buy far fewer of the more expensive academic journals, will face a $200,000 bill systemwide.

George Soete, associate university librarian at UCSD, said most libraries might be able to scrape through the fiscal year without major subscription cancellations by using contingency funds and making fewer book purchases. But without relief soon, he said, librarians face “cannibalizing” one or more portions of their collections to protect other portions.

Even a temporary cancellation of some journals will result in a permanent chronological gap, he warned.

A bill by state Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco) that would offer relief to libraries was signed late Tuesday by Gov. Pete Wilson. The bill would exempt sales tax charges for nonprofit organizations that purchase periodicals that either contain no commercial advertising or are printed by a nonprofit group, such as Science magazine from the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science.

A spokesman in the library affairs office at the UC Office of the President said their libraries could avoid some tax levies on more expensive journals by checking them page-by-page to see if they contain advertising. But the spokesman said the task would be time-consuming and probably require auditing by the state Board of Equalization.

The sales tax will cost already-burdened public libraries about $1 million statewide in the first year.

The Los Angeles Public Library’s costs will increase $82,000, the Los Angeles County Library $102,000, the San Diego Public Library $32,000 and the Pasadena Public Library $6,683.