Open book: a librarian’s view
You didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you anyway! Anna Seiffert reflects on the need to communicate the collection budget to admin and faculty
When I eagerly started as a new librarian at the Colorado School of Mines more than three years ago, I was quickly struck by the lack of communication around the collection as well as general pessimism regarding the budget supporting it. The library’s collection budget was not
keeping pace with skyrocketing journals costs, and instead of collection building, it was maintaining at best. Faculty, tired of hearing ‘no’, had simply stopped communicating their needs with the library and university administration was not responding to annual budget requests. Sound familiar? The library needed to re-set the dialogue with faculty and with administration. The first step I took was to find out the history. Previously, the library was putting the pressure of decisions onto faculty; requesting that new subscriptions were accompanied by an equal cancellation. When communicating annual budget requests to administration, the library had been using general inflation index reports, such as the EBSCO Serials Price Projection Report, as justification, with mixed success.
That changed in 2017 when
administration instead wanted the library to justify cancellations and subscriptions at the title level and provide granular cost-per-use data in order to justify the annual materials budget request. While I appreciated the thinking behind the request, I did not believe that the data requested was appropriate or ultimately informative for administration.
Data-driven decisions Based on the previously mentioned historical analysis, I decided that collection decisions needed to be re- framed with data. The overall materials budget was
first addressed by performing a comparison with peer institutions in regards to historical materials budget increases and a spend breakdown per student. Subscriptions in particular were addressed, as they represented the majority of the materials budget. Instead of auto-pilot renewals, every
subscription was evaluated for renewal based on its support of present academic curriculum or faculty research, the strength of the existing collection in the resources’ subject area, the existing or
projected future use of library resources in the discipline and cost. The need for multiple formats, such as print and online, was evaluated as well. A sustainable threshold was set for annual inflation increases and negotiations were initiated with vendors when that threshold was crossed. In order to meet the inflation threshold, multi-year agreements, consortia deals, and other tactics were used.
The materials budget request in 2018 was based on actual inflation rates as well as exact numbers for new funds requested. This satisfied the administration’s requirements for transparency and proved the request to be justifiable. The library views the management of
library resources as a faculty conversation, but administration also needs to understand what the library is dealing with in regards to inflation, as well as the importance to faculty of certain resources to support research and instruction. Thus, having national data as well having peer data was important. It was also important to remind them of what our historical budget has been, to help frame where it needs to go in the future. Part of the goal was to show that the library is not a cost centre but a strategic investment that will help the university to grow and thrive.
Colorado School of Mines
Communicating with data The library needed to show campus a broad overview on where the collection
10 Research Information February/March 20120 @researchinfo |
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