On Sep 16, 2025, at 10:42 AM, Abubakar Tidal <JTidal_at_CITYTECH.CUNY.EDU> wrote:
> I was curious about your library web server budgets.
>
> * Do you self-host? How much would estimate the yearly cost is including labor/sys administration?
> * If you pay for hosting, how much would you estimate the yearly cost is to host your site?
> * Do you have a dedicated librarian or staff to manage the web server?
>
> --
> Abubakar R. Tidal
Based on my experience, salaries are by far the most expensive costs when it comes to Web server budgets.
When it comes to the hardware, you have two choice: 1) you own it, or 2) you don't. In either case you will need/want to estimate how much CPU power you require, how much network bandwidth you require, and how much storage (hard disk) space you require. For example, I host a simple catalog of about .7 million items, and it does not get very much use. I pay $25/month to have a 4-core machine with maybe a gigabyte of disk space to be hosted for me. You could do about the same thing with just about any leftover Windows desktop machine sitting on a desk in your library. Now-a-days, I believe most libraries do not host their own hardware but rather use a hosting service like AWS. By doing so, the initial costs are much smaller than purchasing hardware, and the result is scalable. On the other hand, I'd be willing to bet the costs are bigger in the long run.
The biggest on going expense will be the one or more people in charge of "care and feeding" the Web server. You will need people with many skills ranging from "dev ops" who excel at managing lower level things such as the operating system, networking, and storage. You then might need application developers who can write software, and now-a-days those software skills include something like Python, Ruby, Javascript, etc. On top of that you may need/want people who are good at graphic design because the applications might be functional but they might not be usable. There is a difference. There are people called "full stack developers" who can do it all. I hesitate to estimate the costs of people to do any of this work, but I know it is much more than the hardware or the hosted service.
Sometimes you might want to use some sort of open source software solution. You then have a choice: run it on your computer(s), or have it hosted. There are advantages and disadvantages of both. If you run it on your computers, then your on-going costs are the salaries of the people and you have the ability to modify it at will. If you have it hosted, then you need fewer in-house skills, there are few options to customize it, but there are on-going subscription fees.
In short, the costs vary w i d e l y , from a few hundred dollars per year to more than $100,000.
--
Eric Morgan <emorgan_at_nd.edu>
Received on Wed Sep 17 2025 - 11:08:28 EDT