Dear All The global financial crisis is moving towards emerging economies like India and one can see clear impact in the library sector. Rising dollar rates and (unfounded) price increase in journals and databases defy the logic of increased demand leads to decrease in prices. On a general note it is quite evident that all libraries have been faced with budget cuts, directly or indirectly. In India the same product today costs about 30-40 % higher than previous year. This is mainly because of the fact that US dollar prices (common currency we pay for foreign titles) has gone up from about Rs. 40 a dollar a year back to about Rs. 51 a dollar today. Add to this the greedy publishers have increased their prices in the range of 7-15%. Now even if we do not look at cut in budget and increase it by 10% as in the bygone days, one cannot subscribe to the same content as we did last year. The point is that where does all this lead to. We may soon have a time when even major libraries will not be able to afford to subscribe to content on a continous basis. With global crisis looming large at our doorsteps we need to work out alternatives in this direction and be prepared to face the worst case scenario. My hunch is that if all libraries and publishers put their head together we may come out with sensible solutions without harming each others survival. Survival may be a strong word but does not have a substitute, atleast for the publishers first. Globally one can see movements to contain the impact of future financial constraints. It is time that we in India, as librarians, get together and plan for the challenges. Maybe we should think of reduction in subscription but not reduction in access (through resource sharing). It is high time that we really looked at proper resource sharing and reducing costs so that we can maintain same or more access levels. Thanks H Anil Kumar Librarian Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.