The Value of Library Resources

AuthorSusannah Tredwell
DateJanuary 14, 2015

The end of the year is budget season. For librarians, part of the budgetary process is looking at our collections, calculating how much it will cost to keep each service, print or electronic, and then deciding if the cost of the service reflects the value we get from that service.

When I look at what the value of an item is for my library, I consider a number of variables:

  • Current usage. Circulation statistics do not tell the whole story. Some lawyers use books in the library rather than checking them out. Other lawyers may take a book out for months at a time and when other users need it, they go to the lawyer’s office to consult it; as a result, in the circulation statistics it appears as only one use.
  • Potential usage. Are there people who should be using a resource but aren’t? If not, why not? It can be illuminating talking to library clients about why they choose not to use certain materials. One interesting phenomenon I have discovered is that once a loose-leaf is cancelled and has labels indicating that it is no longer being updated, it loses value for some researchers. People who will happily use a book published in 2010 will dismiss a loose-leaf last updated in 2011 as being “out of date”; they perceive the loose-leaf as no longer having any value.
  • Quality. This includes the quality of information in the resource, currency of information, and ease of use.
  • Alternatives. Sometimes you subscribe to a resource that is mediocre because there aren’t any alternatives.
  • Accessibility. What are the licencing restrictions on a product if it is an online service? Something that only one person can use is generally less valuable than something that can have multiple users.
  • Cost. How does the cost of the product compare to similar products? Is there something else that would do the same job but is cheaper? Can we lower the effective price by recovering costs?

Value is a very individual thing. What is valuable to one organization may not be valuable to another. Even within an organization, one person’s “can’t live without” resource is another person’s “why are we spending money on this?” item.

Furthermore, the value of materials does not remain static. The value of a resource to an organization can change if the organization loses (or gains) a working group, a publisher introduces a competing resource, or the cost of the resource increases.

Loose-leafs are an obvious example of where value has shifted. A number of loose-leaf services still include legislation...

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