Professor Brian Norton:

We have a much larger library service than others. We operate six libraries, while the other institutes would only operate one. There is quite an overlap in the level of journals that are supplied to meet student needs in different parts of the city. The exercise of producing the list of journals that goes to the supplier is done in the summer. Otherwise, we would need to employ more people to do it when the service is being provided in the autumn. It is a much larger task in the DIT. It is an activity that needs to be completed. We are also under clear instructions to make prompt payments. Indeed, we received a notice regarding same only yesterday. As we discussed earlier, the supplier then has to go to the publishers to secure the journals. If we leave it too late, the potential is that we would have a gap in service at the other end. Given our scale of operations, that would be more significant than for other suppliers.