Busting Budget Barriers OLA Presentation: February 2, 2007

1. Busting Budget BarriersOLA Presentation: February 2, 2007 Katharine Ball Anne Kaay Peter Zimmerman

2. Context / Environment • University of Windsor, Leddy Library • History of the collections budget • Existing structure

3. Collections Budget Review Process • Mandated by the Leddy Library Operations Strategic Plan 2005-2009 • Budget Allocation Working Group formed about two years

4. Reasons for the Budget Review Main Over-arching Reason: • to spend the budget in the most effective manner possible in order to meet the teaching and research information needs of faculty and students => help fulfil the University and Library mission statements

5. Reasons for the Budget Review More Specific Reasons: • Need for accountability and transparency • Historical inequities and allocation problems • Major shifts in programs and enrolment • Major shifts in the publishing & distribution of scholarly information • Need to merge/clean up certain funds

6. Budget Allocation Working Group Report • Issued October 2005 and approved by ULAC • Implemented for fiscal year 2006/2007 • Includes recommendations for all budget lines and ongoing management/review *** Focus today will be mainly on the recommendations for the monograph budget, and more specifically, the monograph budget formula

7. Literature Review Tuten, Jane and Beverly Jones. Allocation Formulas in Academic Libraries, CLIP Note #22. Chicago, IL: Association of College & Research Libraries, 1995. • Survey of over 273 college and small university libraries (1000 FTE-5000 FTE) • 70% response rate with 40% of reporting institutions using some kind of allocation formula while others were in the process of developing formulas • Did not mention the inclusion/exclusion of approval plan purchases for reporting libraries

8. Literature Review Tuten and Jones survey designed to measure: • Portion of budget/availability of funds allocated by formulas • Public/institutional knowledge of formulas • Use and elements of formulas (also noting common elements of various formulas) • Revision frequency • Examples of various formulas from reporting institutions Literature review considered an additional 30 articles: the complete bibliography will be posted with presentation

9. General Trends • Most libraries used formulas for monograph purchases • Fewer libraries including media, CD-ROMs, serials and periodical subscriptions, microform and government documents (in that order) • Electronic resources not typically included • Some libraries had separate allocation formulas for specific areas such as reference, new programs, instructional media, periodicals, literature and interdisciplinary studies

10. Disadvantages/Criticisms • Fail to identify specific collection needs and to develop long-term plans to meet them • Designed without adequate attention to their distributional impacts • Component variables may be arbitrary or based upon weak theoretical grounds • Inflexible and so unable to accommodate the purchase of a large set or block purchase • May not work well to satisfy accreditation agencies • Do not resolve the issue of which fund should pay for interdisciplinary titles • May not adequately address library collections for new programs or classes

11. Advantages • Demonstrate accountability in specific and quantifiable terms that meaningfully relate the goals of the library to the goals of the university • Ensure objectivity and consistency by measuring each department against the same criteria • Can allow the library’s allocations to better reflect any changing conditions within the university • Facilitate inter-institutional and/or interdepartmental comparisons • Allow for comparisons from year to year • Encourage reasonable planning for collections development

12. Most Commonly Used Variables • FTE faculty • Student credit hours • Circulation statistics • Average cost of books

13. Types of Formulas Unweighted – variables judged as having equivalent importance. An advantage of this is all variables assigned equality of value, bypassing concerns re: value. Disadvantage is that all variables may not be perceived as of equal importance. Weighted – variables are assigned coefficients or constants indicating weight. The coefficient is adjusted according to the importance of each variable, as perceived by those implementing the formula. Major advantage is that libraries can assign importance to variables deemed valuable to a particular institution; a disadvantage is that, in order for the formula to be successful, all parties must agree on the weights assigned. Percentage-based – variables assigned specific portions or percentages of the budget. Advantages and disadvantages are identical to those for weighted formulas.

14. Decisions Made after Lit. Review • Individual department/monograph funds for monographs would be maintained • Certain “library” funds would be excluded • Base 2005/2006 allocations would not be decreased; instead $100,000 of new money would be divided up according to the formula

15. Decisions Made after Lit. Review • Also decided on the general categories of variables we wanted to use in the formula A. Numbers of Faculty and Students B. Use of Collection C. Price of Books Many ways to define, measure, and weight these variables • Started examining our options • Have to work with the data that is available

16. Options: Faculty/Student Numbers • Faculty FTE (on annual basis) was the only option • Students A. Head counts – available for undergraduate and graduate students B. FTE – measured in different ways for undergraduate and graduate students C. SEUs – for undergraduates only

17. Options: Use of the Collection Decided on circulation of library materials • Different types of circulation • Measuring circulation by subject/department/fund - Library of Congress classification to define/measure circulation of collection in different subject areas - Circulation per title purchased by each fund • Also considered using exact numbers, percentages, rankings, mean, median, etc.

18. Options: Book Price • Generic book prices from vendors such as YBP • Custom reports from our own monograph vendors • Actual prices of books bought from each fund • Considered mean vs. median

19. The Budget Formula • Numbers of faculty and students (weighted 50% of total) Faculty (FTE) 5% Grads (FTE) 10% Undergrads (SEU) 35% ̶ Calculated on a 5 year rolling time period basis • Average circulation per book purchased (weighted 40%) ̶ Calculated on an 8 year rolling time period basis • Median price per book (weighted 10%) ̶ Calculated on a 5 year rolling time period basis

20. The Budget Formula • Library funds (reference, rare books, government documents, and “general”) were allocated based on past experience • Formula was then applied to departmental/programme funds • No monograph fund assessed by the formula received less than its 2004/2005 base allocation • Only funds that according to the formula should have base budgets greater than their 2004/2005 base allocation received increases in 2006/2007 • These increases were calculated proportionally to reflect the percentage of change indicated by the formula

21. Future Concerns • Electronic budget: formula does not apply to the largest part of the library’s acquisitions budget • Almost 75% of the library’s budget • Contains full-text bibliographic, citation/abstract bibliographic, numerical/statistical and geospatial database subscriptions as well as e-journal packages and individual e-journal subscriptions • Includes subscriptions that are part of consortial arrangements, either at the federal or provincial level • Large part of the challenge is how to determine the collection strengths/weaknesses in this fund

22. Future Concerns • Formula not applied to serials collection; historical allocations for print serials may have created inequities that have not provided optimum support for print serials across the disciplines • Impact of e-books • Implementation of formula does not reduce historical fund allocation from fiscal year 2004/2005 so does not address issue of whether the fund was overendowed in that and previous fiscal years • Question of how to address issue of funds unspent

23. Questions?