Barbara Albee

Is the era of ephemeralization finally over or just beginning? LJ’s 2026 Periodicals Price Survey looks at how economic constraints may affect the landscape. For years, libraries have attempted to navigate inflationary pressures and unsympathetic budgets by following the maxim of “doing more with less,” in part by developing efficiencies and leaning into automation.

This year, we cast both a look back to see what can be learned from the past, and a look forward to consider what might be heading our way in the coming years. Since 1960, Library Journal has published an annual article covering the ups and downs of periodicals pricing.

METHODOLOGY Survey tables are created by examining historical serials pricing information from EBSCO Information Service for serial titles indexed in Scopus, Clarivate Analytics Citation Indexes, EBSCOhost Academic Search Ultimate, and EBSCOhost MasterFILE Complete. Data for impact factor and other citation-based metrics is derived from Clarivate’s Journal Citation Reports (JCR).