"The situation (stagnant or declining funding) should only
worsen as people come to think of the free Web as the primary
information utility and begin to question why they should continue to
pay taxes to support what appears to be an inferior information source
housed in a building downtown, possibly in an area that nobody goes to
much anymore." ~ Steve Coffman
"The cost of library materials continues to rise. Between 1986
and 2002, the price of scholarly journals grew 257 percent; the
consumer price index increased only 57 percent during the same period.
In 2002, research libraries spent one-third of their collection budgets
on roughly the same number of journal titles that they had acquired in
1986." Daniel Greenstein
"Allocating funds for library materials can be a very complex,
intellectual, politically charged and sometimes emotional process for
those involved." ~ Lisa B. German and Karen A. Schmidt
"Securing an adequate allocation for library materials often
varies widely from year to year, and the percentage allocated for
library materials rarely remains steady for two consecutive years,
making planning and collection development extremely problematic.
~Pamela Bluh, James Neal, and J. Randolph Call
"This is the first curse of the modern librarian: tough love hurts. Still, it's a necessary pain. Too few people understand that library services aren't really free -- like all government services, they-re just pre-paid. And as a profession, we haven't done a good job explaining to the public that books do not magically fly onto shelves, librarians and other library employees do not work for the sheer fun of it, and Web sites do not fix their own broken links. In large part due to the very factors that make us special -- particularly our strong service orientation and our keen interest in the public good -- we are all to expert at 'making do,' and that has made us easy targets for cuts." ~ Karen G. Schneider
"People who are responsible for making library budget cuts are never held responsible, and librarians can always be depended upon to either make up the slack or to carry the blame if things don't work out because of bad decisions. I agree that you work as hard as you can to prevent the governor from being held responsible for you not being able to make bricks without straw, or to buy e-journals without dollars. And if the librarian can't make a miracle happen, the librarian should be held responsible instead of some politician who promises tax cuts with not cuts in services. Not! Naturally, you are starved for cash. You are starved because people higher up aren't held accountable for the library problems they cause." ~ Robert L. Hadden
"And I doubt if any of us anticipated the kind of resentment
that can creep in, as the need for new computers, new programs, new
connections, new technical support staff, gradually eats away at our
budgets, using money that might otherwise have gone for books and
periodicals, for more librarians and higher salaries. The
techno-economic imperative is a lot like the plant in the Little Shop
of Horrors, getting bigger all the time and a lot harder to resist when
it says 'Feed me.'" ~ Marylaine Block
"We've cut costs every way we can think of: cutting up used
grocery bags for printer paper, relying on an old steam-powered bar
code reader, and even carving new 'rubber' stamps out of potatoes. So
maybe I'm exaggerating - but times are tough. Short of robbing the
local bank, what can we do to improve the sorry state of our finances?"
~ from an article by George Needham
"Public funding for libraries and allied organizations will
likely continue to decline or remain at low levels for several years.
... Libraries and allied organizations cannot assume public funding
will always be available." ~ OCLC
"By quietly stretching ourselves beyond our limits, we risk making ourselves more like Borders in the worst possible way: offering ill-organized collections and equipment, and providing nobody but ill-informed clerks to answer people's questions and help them use machines." ~ Marylaine Block
"In a profession trained to share, supporting revenue generators can seem equivalent to letting money-changers into the temple of knowledge. More compelling is the very legitimate concern that the development of revenue streams is a slippery slope that can lead to selling off the public good." ~ Beth Dempsey
"Just as banks always want to lend money to applicants who [do not]
need the money, donors want to give to programs with strengths, not
weaknesses.... Donors want to go with winners, not losers." ~ Ralph
Lowenstein
The State Library of Iowa created a most useful Telling the Library Story Tool Kit. It is especially useful for budget presentations for lay audiences or creating community support for library budgets.
Webjunction has a series of quick guides focusing on how to demonstrate library impact. These are most helpful in pre-budget preparation public relations and marketing as well as preparing for the budget presentation.
Webjunction.org is devoted to better ways to demonstrate the impact of libraries to the public. Much useful content with an emphasis on the outcomes of library use.
There is a growing literature on the value/impact of libraries, especially on public and school libraries. For example, a South Carolina study found that for ever dollar spent by government on public libraries, $2.86 was returned. School library studies have found that schools with qualified school library media specialists have higher achievement on standardized tests and literacy. The question is how meaningful such findings and the associated conclusions are to those who allocate funds.
By sharing resources, we minimize the cost of access. For example, tax payers share resources in the public library so several people can read a book for a fraction of the cost of individual purchase. By pooling resources, we can have access to expensive resources otherwise too expensive for individual use. Some of the digital databases available in Hodges cost tens of thousands of dollars so they would be unaffordable for individual students and faculty. Few community members understand how much it costs to run a library and why.
At the moment, funding for "public goods" is in considerable disarray from political, economic, and social forces. Economic growth is slow. Resistance to taxation is high. Private goods may seem to be more important than public ones. When funding is limited, competition between desirable functions create acrimony and distrust. For example, should the community spend money on police or libraries? Staffing and materials [collection development and management] budgets are targets for budget reduction.
Although such sharing seems to be an intuitive good, people have to be convinced of the value of resource sharing. An argument often heard is that only those who use a collection should pay for it. This is similar to the notion that only families whose children attend public schools should pay taxes for public education. We need to be able to demonstrate that the quality of life in the community is improved for all, even those who do not use the collection. How might we do that?
Rationing has been an integral part of the collection development/management process. Normally, we cannot afford to buy as many copies of an item as are needed. Someone who wishes to read a best seller will have to wait for weeks for her turn. Historically, library collections were limited to one user at one time in one place. Some database vendors would like to continue that arrangement today via their licenses on acceptable use.
Fees may be used to limit use and bring supply and demand into balance. For example, charging for on-line searching limits demand to a reasonable amount. Requiring users to pay for inter-library loan (ILL) reduces "capricious" requests. It may also create a hardship for less affluent users, especially if the items they need are not locally available because of a library policy or selection decision.
Distributed information via the Internet breaks the historical model by allowing many users at one time from different places. Less rationing will take place in the future as one copy is distributed to several users at the same time. Mirror sites increase this ability to serve multiple users with one item. Note too, that here the collection comes to you rather than you going to the collection.
A profit center generates both revenue and expenses. Normally, its revenue would exceed its expenses. A cost center generates expenses but has not responsibility for generating revenue. Its purpose is to meet budget targets. In the for-profit world, information centers often are profit centers. They bill other units for services and the revenue earned from these services pays for expenses. Agencies that are cost centers are often viewed negatively by management. In some situations, you may be expected to develop collections within the cost center environment where there is no thought given to revenue. In other situations, collections will be developed in a situation where revenue is expected.
While most librarians and other information agencies are used to being stand-alone agencies, there may be value in finding partners or alliances with other organizations with similar goals and objectives. Well articulated financial requests from organizations representing a larger community segment may be more appealing to funders. Efficiencies may also evolve as in group purchasing or cost-sharing for common functions. While state-wide cooperative purchasing initiatives or those by academic libraries have received considerable visibility, local cooperative initiatives have not received as much attention.
Many collections, and collection developers, are faced with retrenchment. This is particularly true of publicly funded collections in environments where tax monies are increasingly inadequate to provide for the range of services demanded. One recent example from a county public library system:
Long before there are rumors of cost-cutting and layoffs, prepare a strategic review of products and services. This is a basic SWOT analysis [strength, weakness, opportunity, threat]. You must align products and services to the strategy and direction of the parent organization. The library must be "seen as a strategic resource." Review and change your content portfolio to insure that selections are focused and essential. There should be a backup budget plan in readiness.
The key question is whether retrenchment likely to be a continuing or "merely" a special event? If financial problems are likely to be temporary, different remedies would be implemented than if the longer range financial situation is gloomy. Some libraries have experienced five or six retrenchment years (UTK Libraries) and are now faced with very difficult remedies. The scholarly periodical price increase crisis has affected virtually all research library collections.
Retrenchment is a formal reduction in funds for collection development. The result will be fewer items added to the collection in the future. Responding thoughtfully to limited financial resources is an integral part of collection management. The thoughtful manager anticipates funding problems and has considered likely steps to take "just in case." The collection manager who is "blind-sided" by a financial crisis has not been a competent planner. "What if" planning is essential here.
Although not always recognized, retrenchment may have benefits. The major one is that it forces the manager to relate financial resources for collection development to use and the value/impact of that use. Retrenchment forces collection developers to concentrate resources on those topics and formats that make a difference. Since new money is not likely to be available, the collection manager must consider how to get more from the "old money." Community analysis and appropriate collection development priorities become absolutely necessary. When existing topics and formats receive reduced funding, there may be an opportunity to consider new approaches to meeting user needs. For example, document delivery of individual periodical articles may be better for users than the canceled periodical subscriptions and also less expensive.
The process must be seen as honest and equitable. Any suggestion of favoritism or sweetheart deals can quickly destroy public confidence in the institution and the collection.
The first step is to identify likely candidates. In a well-managed library, we would know which services and collections are most valued and used by the community. Community analysis results lead to community based priorities.
Normally, we begin by looking for expensive collections or titles. Then, we look at use. Comparative data on cost (including likely future cost) and impact (number served) of materials by topic, format, and audience is essential. Cost per use or user is especially valuable. We also look at alternative providers since we are more likely to reduce or eliminate items or collections where alternatives remain in the community. Obviously, if other collections are engaged in the same process, we cannot assume that they will continue to support an item or a collection. Ask.
The second step is to evaluate the candidates previously identified. The key question here is "If we did not have this collection or item, would we develop it or select it now?" How heavily has the collection been used in the past? Is use substantial enough, and likely to continue at that level, to warrant continued support? Would promotion or marketing create more and continuing use?
The third step is to select a particular retrenchment approach for each collection or title to be reduced or eliminated. Resources might be allocated:
The fourth step is to share your decision with the community in a persuasive manner. The community needs to understand why funding was reduced, why the process is equitable and objective, and what might be done in the future. Since this is "their" collection, they need to be informed and given an opportunity to suggest viable alternatives. In particular, we need to make clear that the library cannot continue to provide the same portfolio of services after reduced funding by simply cutting "the fat."
It is likely that most collection developers will face a good-sized reduction in the financial resources available for collection development. Be prepared. Consider what you might do long before the "crisis" arrives. Personal financial planning emphasizes that one should plan ahead in case you lose your position or become disabled. The same is true here. "Just in case" financial planning is crucial in these troubled times.
Budgeting, sometimes called resource allocation, can be simple as when a public library divides its budget into adult, juvenile, fiction, and non-fiction. It can be complicated in a research library with a large number of subjects, formats, and audiences. Since budget policies and procedures vary notably from agency to agency, it is essential that you know how things are done locally.
Identification of advocates and champions is an essential step. "By-in and coalition building are key to the success of any management effort, and that advocates and champions are essential to achieving that buy-in and coalition building." Pre-selling is important to any budgetary success. This includes speaking to people, gathering information, planting seeds, and developing relationships with knowledgeable stakeholders. Pre-selling is also an opportunity for gaining a sanity check so see if an idea is viable. Over all, those responsible for the information agency is to make the value of information services within the organization much more visible by establishing continuing relationships with key voices in the organization. This is crucial since the library becomes much less visible as users go to a portal and use resources elsewhere.
Resource allocation normally mirrors prevailing economic conditions, especially for collections in publicly funded agencies. Normally, when the economy does well, tax reviews increase and there is more money for the collections. When the economy does poorly, there is less money. Ups and downs are to be expected.
In the past, inflation has had considerable impact. For a variety of reasons, the increase in the price of materials purchased by collection developers has substantially exceeded more general increases seen in the Consumer Price Index. This is particularly true of scholarly periodicals, especially in science, technology, and medicine (STM) published by the large for-profit foreign publishers. Many libraries buy less and less of more and more. Many good and useful items have not be added and will not be added in the future. It seems reasonable to state that there will never be enough collection development money.
Until recently, collections were largely valued by their size. Larger collections were better collections. Quantity was a proxy for quality. With limited resources, there is more emphasis on controlling collection size and focusing on a "high visitation [may be virtual], high circulation collection. Thus, we move closer to fixed size collections [zero growth perhaps]. Less used materials should be held but once within a region.
At the same time, user expectations have risen considerably, often shaped by the instant gratification they receive from web-based services.
A fundamental truth is that users rarely care about the cost of materials for the collection. They believe that higher costs are "our" problem and not ours. This is best seen in academic libraries where the crisis in serial prices is seen as a "library" problem. It is not our library and it is their problem. In fact, academic promotion/tenure and salary improvement policies encourage scholars to maximize publication and thus increase costs. A major challenge for the collection manager is to engage users in action to reduce the cost of scholarly communication and to secure needed financial resources. A senior faculty member is more likely to convince university administrators to provide more money for the library than the dean of libraries.
Traditionally, the collections budget was used to purchase tangible items that would be held and kept. Auditors and critics could be shown exactly how the money was spent. If needed, they could touch and examine purchased items.
While a few items have been leased on an annual basis for a long time, the advent of the digital data base has resulted in a relatively large number of expensive items which are leased and not owned. There are no residual or permanent assets unless allowed by contract [perpetual rights]. If you do not renew for the next year, the resource is taken away. Like periodical subscriptions, you must make a decision to renew each year and the new price is likely to be higher than the old one. Collection developers fear that publishers issue digital resources at lower prices to encourage acquisition, but will then substantially increase the price in future years after the library's users depend on that resource. In a sense, each year you repurchase information that you already had. Since you lease, conditions of use are explicitly stated in a contract which may limit use. Price for leased services and collections is usually negotiated so that some agencies may get a better price than others. The ability to negotiate becomes very important. Since contracts are legal documents, the collection developer/manager will need to involve legal council, often from the parent institution.
Since most leased items are digital, there are additional costs involving:
It is important to know which of these costs will need to come from the collections budget. Some collections budgets have been hard hit with all the costs needed to make a digital collection available to users.
Because of the high cost of bundled digital resources, most libraries are substantially reducing their selection of print materials, especially books.
An important but difficult question is the degree to which the agency budget should be spent on collections or for salaries and wages of the people who develop, organize, and manage that collection. Libraries typically spent about 25% to 35% of their budget on material and slightly more than 60% on staff. Outsiders often fail to understand why so much money goes to people rather than material. Why not have a self-service library, rather like a large chain bookstore, where most of the money goes into the collection? How much needed value do these people add to the collection?
More than any other document, the collections budget discloses the real character of the collection by defining priorities, especially how the collection sees the future. How you allocate money clearly indicates which subjects, formats, and audiences are most important. Typically, there are at least three budgets. The operating budget includes total annual expenses for the unit [collection development and management or the library]. It may include recurring expenses and one-time expenses. The capital budget supports a major activity that is not limited to a fiscal year [FY]. The cash budget projects actual timing of revenue and expenditure.
You will probably be required to create a certain type of budget in a certain way. You must identify and be able to defend your priorities for the collection. Thus, the major purpose is to insure that you create an acceptable, persuasive budget before deadlines. Ideally, an excellent budget document plus the budget presentation would result in more money for collections (or limiting reductions in a time of trouble). The budget process is an example of persuasive communication where helpful information is conveyed to a variety of audiences (including an internal one). It may be your best opportunity to develop support for and trust in the allocation process.
Being familiar with the local process and the players in that process is essential. You must be able to answer these questions:
Accountability is another key. Inevitably, the budget process forces you to consider the result of previous budget decisions. Was the money well spent? Did it make a difference? Can you demonstrate to others that it made a difference? Did you monitor your expenditures to insure that you spent money as planned? Where were you under budget? Where were you over budget? How might you do better next time?
Other benefits of the budget process include the need to thoughtfully plan for the future and create acceptable forecasts for future wants/needs and how much it will cost to do that.
When you decide to spend so much money on this and so much money on that, you are allocating resources. Allocations may be formal, explicit, and detailed, especially in larger agencies with more complex parent organizations. Allocations may be informal, implicit, and vague, especially in smaller agencies without parent organization or with small informal ones. Few collection managers have detailed, priority oriented allocation schemes although some research university libraries do well here. Normally, money is allocated by subject, by format, and by audience. For example, public libraries normally allocate money by audience--adult and juvenile,and then by subject--fiction and nonfiction. Academic libraries may allocate by academic discipline or profession. Too few allocation units create a situation where you have little sense of where the money went. Too many allocation units will create troublesome book-keeping. Remember that you should be able to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of a collection. It is difficult to that if you allocate money to fiction rather than breaking out fiction categories.
Ideally, allocations will reflect the priorities seen in the mission, goals, and objectives of both the parent institution and the agency. Budget scope should be clearly defined. What is included the collections budget? Binding is a good example of a traditional inclusion. Purchasing a computer to host a CD-ROM database may be a good example of an item that would not normally be included. What collection-related expenditures are not included in the collections budget?
Allocation should:
It is important to identity and consider the various people who may read your budget document. Ideally, you would be familiar with their likes and dislikes, especially what they will look for in the budget document. You will have an internal audience--staff, information professionals, other managers in your unit--and an external audience in the parent organization. It may be difficult to create a budget document that will appeal to all of these people. In some situations, users and other community members will be part of the audience is they learn about the budget via media or other dissemination. Who will read your budget document?
Contacts are essential. You must develop relationships with key players in the budget process in your agency (and in the parent organization if appropriate) and regularly communicate with them. You should know exactly what is expected and when it is due.
Communicate, communicate. Senior managers in your agency should be kept aware of trends and problems likely to impact the current and future budgets. You need to demonstrate that the collections budget is fiscally responsible and thoughtfully monitored. Honest, accurate data on financial needs and current expenditures needs to be shared on a regular basis.
Develop relationships with stakeholders. It is their collection and they should have an opportunity to suggest ways in which the collections could better meet their needs and how budget allocations might be more equitable or more effective. Suggestions should be solicited, and carefully evaluated. Tactful replies should be timely. Ideally, community members (users especially) would be allies in securing more funding for collections.
Once you are familiar with the several steps and deadlines of your local budget process, you should schedule activities to insure the budget is on time and is as persuasive as possible. Typically, there will be some budget effort throughout the year and not just a one time document and presentation. Note that securing funding for a major initiative may take several years so that continued, regular effort is needed.
Your current awareness program should provide you with much of the information that you will need. Still, you will need to gather and organize data on:
Forecasting is needed to allow you to make reasonable predictions about the future cost of collection development. Many vendors (both monographic and serial) will provide forecasts [sometimes these are price indexes] for price increases by subject or sometimes by serial publisher. Obviously, it is easiest to use these forecasts and they may be more persuasive to managers in the parent organization. Still, it is important to compare the basket of titles that they use with the basket of titles that you are likely to purchase. In some cases, the external forecasts will not match your purchasing profile. In that case, you will need to create your own forecast by collecting prices for the past three years and creating a price index. Don't forget to focus on the likely discount rate, if any, that you will receive from your vendor. Typically, vendors have reduced their discounts over the years. Leased titles may not be included in standard price indexes or vendor forecasts since they typically do not involve purchase or subscription. Note that changes in the exchange rate will immediately impact research organizations that acquire expensive material from Western Europe. There is an excellent Forecasting Principles Site at the Wharton School
Reviewing previous budgets and expenditures should help to identify threats and opportunities as well as a rationale for particular requests. Since the budget is essentially a statement of current priorities, you will need to consider if those priorities need to change. It is unusual to develop a collections budget from scratch. You should be able to make minor changes to a previous budget.
Allocation units will have been selected in earlier budgets. Unless you wish to change, allocation units should be a given. Typical unit categories include:
Allocation criteria are used to determine how much money is given to a particular unit. For example, how much for soccer and how much for football. Again, criteria should have been adopted earlier. However, you may wish to change. Typical criteria include:
The allocation method is almost always historical. This means that the new budget is based upon the previous budget, usually with across the board increases or decreases. In some situations, individual allocations may be used and this is better but requires much more work and is more difficult to defend.
Zero based funding requires that each budget be developed and justified from scratch.
Formula budgeting uses plug-ins to determine who gets what. Formulas are sometimes arbitrary and not always valid, but they do remove the collections manager from the political process. It is easier to defend the result of a formula budget. The key to formula budgeting is selecting appropriate allocation criteria and weights to accompany the criteria.
Here is a formula used by the Library at the University of Tulsa. Departmental allocations are the result of X + J + K with this sum divided by 3. X equals the number of faculty in the department divided by the number of faculty plus weighted student credit hours in the department divided by the number of weighted student credit hours with this sum divided by 2. J equals departmental circulation divided by total circulation. K equals books published by subject times average cost of books in subject divided by total cost of all books in all subjects.
Variables used in formulas may include:
While formulas remove the collection developer from the political arena [decisions are objective and automatic], there can be problems. For example, a program may have a large number of students, but a small number of library users
This is always a difficult question and there are no generalizable answers. Know your local situation. Generating a large, unrealistic budget request and hoping to get most of that funded is usually unsuccessful and creates negative images. Many funders will assume that there is some leeway in any budget and will usually cut on that assumption. Should you submit a "bare bones" budget and then be cut by five percent? Would it be better to add more so that when you are cut, you will be in better shape? How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin? Give careful thought to how you will approach this difficult decision.
While each information agency has its own priorities, based on the needs and wants of particular audiences, it is essential "to find connections between your library's value and your funder's priorities." You must be familiar with and clearly understand the priorities of those who fund the agency, especially since those priorities change over time. You must be able to demonstrate how funding will enable the community to be more successful -- typically in effectiveness and efficiency.
Traditional library statistics are not nearly as persuasive today as in the past. Similarly, comparisons with peer institutions has less impact. While they may be expected, they are not adequate to support a budget presentation. Outcome-based evaluation and statistics are needed, i.e. what is that community members are able to do because the collections are available? In particular, how do these outcomes increase the quality of life in the community? Anecdotal evidence or stories humanize and add impact to data-driven evidence. Together, these different types of evidence should clearly answer questions about how the information agency provides a substantial return on investment and that funding the library is an investment in the quality of life and success of the community.
The budget presentation is a cumulation of considerable educational and promotional effort. It is never a one-step, one meeting effort. The budget presentation, ideally, the presentation should be a concise, compelling summary of what the audience already knows. Be familiar with previous budgets and what they accomplished. Present the budget in terms of the difference it will make in organizational and individual success. Focus on particular users rather than the collection itself.
It is important to know your audience. Who is the most important person that you need to convince? Your presentation should meet their needs/wants. If they like flip charts, use flip charts. If they like statistics, use statistics. Use your time well and never use more than your given time unless they you are in the question and answer segment.
Don't expect to get what you ask for. It may take several presentations and several years for a request to be planted and grow into acceptance. Budget presentations are always for the future and not just for next year.
Realistic expectations and consequences are essential. Posturing or threats rarely work and often create tension with funders. You need to provide realistic expectations about the impact of reduced funding. There must be clear linkage between agency funding, collections funding, and success in parent organization mission.
You must be able to discuss Return on investment (ROI) from collections development. Benefits may be soft or hard. Soft benefits typically allow the agency to be more efficient in delivering services. Hard benefits are seen in community member activities. For example, using mean book prices and adult/children circulation, a public library might save the community the cost of $1,326, 000 in materials that otherwise would have been purchased. That is a substantial return on the collection development budget.
Be careful. Don't create the perception that no amount of money will ever be enough. In the same vein, don't allow funders to assume that you can continue to provide the same level of collections and services with inadequate funding.
Comparison with collections in peer institutions has been an effective presentation approach in the past. It seems to be less effective today. Select peer institutions and collections with care.
John Harvard gave 300 volumes to a struggling college library and it later became the premier academic library system in the United States. Andrew Carnegie gave money to 1500 communities for public library buildings that impacted generations of Americans. Many notable private and public collections in existence today are the result of gifts and giving. Museums and larger research libraries are still actively involved in identifying and working to insure that major collections may be given to them.
Becoming a Fund-Raiser: the Principles and Practice of Library Development by Victoria Steele and Stephen Elder is a standard title with much useful content.
Fund-raising is increasingly important for collections of all types. Reductions in public, and private funding, have created an environment in which many collection developers/managers are expected to participate in some kine of fund-raising initiative. For some agencies, this has become a permanent, continuing part of agency financing and is built into the budget process.
In order to be effective, fund-raising needs to be important to all in the agency from the Director on down. It must be a central component of the budgetary process and not a now and then activity. At least one professional needs to be responsible for all fund-raising efforts. Gifts must be consistently and appropriately recognized and givers should receive annual stewardship reports. An annual fund drive is reasonable for most libraries.
As more and more agencies of all types resort to fund-raising, there has been a dramatic increase in competition for private support. Compassion Fatigue is a problem with some many organizations appealing for money. What is unique about the information agency that may attract donors? While buildings remain attractive to those who donate funds, collections can also be attractive. Many libraries have had considerable success with memorial book and adopt a periodical programs. Collections and individual titles offer consider opportunity to memorialize an individual and the donor.
One of the iron-clad rules is that external funding should not reduce or replace the internal budget. However, I know of no way to insure that this could not happen. In some case, success with external funding has resulted in a loss of local funding.
Typically, money without strings is the most desired gift. If there is enough money, it can be invested (an endowment) and interest income used to purchase items for the collection. Interest income will vary with economic conditions and fiscal/monetary policy. Poor investment decisions could result in substantial losses. Normally, the collection manager has little say in the investment decisions.
While strings are to be avoided, that may not be reasonable. Gifts with strings (conditions of the donor) can result in an unbalanced collection. For example, gifts may allow substantial improvement in the business collection while there is no gift money for the philosophy collection.
Some libraries have had good success with corporate sponsorships or partnerships. For example, a corporate sponsor may be involved with a summer reading program, special programs and exhibits. Such sponsorships make the agency much more visible to the community and additional resources allow expanded services and collections.
There may be considerable administrative costs in securing and working with sponsors. Clear, appropriate guidelines need to be established at the beginning. For example, would a public library partner with a brewery for a series of programs to reach an African-American audience as was done in St. Louis? Too, there is the danger than visible sponsorship may reduce local funding or that sponsors may offend some in the community. Still, as Stephen Slade said, "a Chevron reading Room was better than no room at all." and that it is possible to walk the thin line between recognition and "crass commercialization."
The Baltimore County Public Library Foundation [how many public libraries have a foundation to engage in fund-raising?] has agreements with a reasonably large number of on line stores so that up to 27 percent of each purchase cost goes to the Foundation. This might be politically correct if the stores were local or in the library's service area.
Some public libraries have had good success with wish lists posted on Amazon.com and at local bookstores. LSSI has a wish list program called 1st Reads that makes it easy for community members to order books for the library at a discounted price.
Individual branches may have their own wish lists [this may create inequalities as more affluent communities will donate more than less affluent ones]. To a notable degree, success is a function of the affluence of the immediate neighborhood so that equity can become a difficult problem.
Review your agency mission, goals, and objectives. Be able to relate collections to these. Focus on what is unique about what you do and how you do it. What difference does the agency and its collections make to the quality of life in the community? Consider any competition and how you might distinguish your agency from that. Focus on success and how just a bit more money can make the library even more successful.'s
Most of the heavy lifting will be done by volunteers, often from the Friends of the Library group.
Set an attainable, realistic goal based on discussions with peers and board or friend's members. Giving needs to be targeted to programs with appeal and well related to the library's mission. A case statement must be developed to provide a rationale for the campaign.
Planning must include solicitation methods, reporting, publicity, events, budget, and library staff support. Personal face-to-face solicitation by community leaders works best. The better the friends group, the more likely that the campaign will be successful. In many campaigns, about two percent of the contacts will give half of the total raised and twenty percent will give the next thirty to forty percent. Thus, a few people make a dramatic difference. Acknowledging and honoring donors is important.
Be able to identify particular items that will make a difference to a particular group of users or the community as a whole. Know how much it will cost to provide those items. Be able to identify individuals or groups in the community who like to support that use or those users. For example, providing a core collection on model railroading for $100 would appeal to most model railroad clubs.
If your agency is part of a larger organization, such as a university, you will need to work closely with their development staff. Most university libraries are not allowed to initiate giving campaigns on their own.
You must have the right person in the agency to coordinate or manage the fund-raising initiatives. Appearance, style or manner, and organizational ability are essential. This person must be a crackerjack sales person and be comfortable with "cold calls." That person, with support, will plan, implement, and evaluate the various activities required for fund-raising. Use of professional fund-raisers may need to be considered. Fund-raising will require financial resources and should be part of your agency budget.
Identify people in the community who might be interested in helping. Many agencies have a "friends" group and that would be a good place to begin. Typically, fund-raising is most successful when "friends" ask for money and not the information professional.
Working with supporters and friends, identify likely sources
or prospects (partners). Consider events that might raise money and
awareness of needs. Personal contacts are best. Encourage people to
invest in an unique opportunity. Be able to tactfully discuss re
cognitional consequences. These might include attending special events,
public mention, tax deductions, and the pleasure of doing "good."
While not likely to result in large sums of money, earned income from:
The typical museum earns about 30 percent of its budget from these activities. In some libraries, earned income activities involve substantial contribution of time and effort by volunteers or friends of the library members.
There is some evidence that community members place a higher value on services that they pay for versus those that are "free."
Some libraries have had success with affiliate programs where they earn income when a user clicks on a partner's link [Amazon, for example] on your website. Target.com and Walmart.com offer affiliate programs. The library receives a percentage of the purchase price as well as a flat fee for the referral.
Fees represent another source of funds. Some special libraries and information centers have "billed" user departments for services for years. Many libraries have always charged users for material received via ILL. Videos in public libraries usually require a fee. On-line searching by library staff is normally fee-based. The key here is that fees are supposed to be charged ONLY for service/uses that are not basic or essential. Thus, video use must not be essential while book use is. Does this seem to be a reasonable way capture income to allow certain collections and services to be provided?
The University of Arkansas, Little Rock, has a student library fee just as UT has a technology fee. This means that students pay twice for library use. Once through the normal tuition and fees and second via the special fee. When are such special fees justifiable?
Hennepin County Public Library is considering providing access to popular fiction and nonfiction for a fee of $3.00 per week. This would be in addition to titles added to the regular collection and would be a "premium service."
The Brooklawn, New Jersey school district has sold naming rights for buildings to raise money. One school library media center is named. In a sense, this has been done in higher education for years where large donations result in named buildings.
Select an information agency of your choice. Discuss some specific steps you would take if informed that your budget would be cut five percent next FY. Discuss some specific steps that you would take if you were informed in January that your current budget was cut 15 percent?
What can be done to demonstrate and increase the economic
value of information agencies?
Select an information agency of your choice. How would you allocate the funds in your budget? Specifically, how specific would your allocation categories be re: subjects and formats? Would you include periodicals in the subject allocations or grouped together under format?
Select an information agency of your choice. Discuss how you would communicate and educate funding decision-makers throughout the FY.
Select an information agency of your choice. Discuss, with some specifics, the fund-raising initiatives that are likely to be most successful in this situation. We should you do to insure that fund-raising is successful?
Select an information agency of your choice. Are there situations or circumstances in which it would be appropriate to charge fees for collection use or services like ILL which relate to collection use? Are fees an acceptable answer to the problems associated with declining public or private funding?
Last major revision: January 2005.
