CDL-Zero-Based Budgeting for Departmental Book Funds

>
> From:
> Stephen Dew SHDEW <SHDEW_at_uncg.edu>
>
>
>
> Fellow COLLDV-L Members:
>
> At UNC Greensboro we have a book approval plan that provides a 
> majority of the books that the Library obtains each year, but we also 
> provide funds to each academic department on campus to use in ordering 
> monographs not covered through the approval plan.  These departmental 
> funds of course are somewhat arbitrary, with different amounts alloted 
> to different departments according to tradition and a variety of other 
> reasons (graduate programs, number of students, nature of the 
> discipline, demand by faculty members, etc.), but nothing is really 
> allocated through a particular mathematical formula.  Some of our 
> staff have suggested that we begin allocating these departmental book 
> funds according to a zero-based budgeting model.  Although our 
> tradional funding is a bit arbitrary, it seems to me that the factors 
> and values that are involved in a zero-based budgeting model would 
> also have to have some arbitrariness built in as well.   A review of 
> the library literature on zero-based budgeting turns up a rather 
> limited list of articles -- primarily articles about small public 
> libraries or highly special libraries (especially non-US) -- very 
> little concerning US academic libraries.  If anyone on the List uses 
> zero-based budgeting for departmental book funds (or have in the 
> past), I would greatly appreciate receiving a few comments about your 
> experience.
>
> Many Thanks!
>
> Stephen H. Dew, PhD
> Collections & Scholarly Resources Coordinator
> University Libraries
> University of North Carolina at Greensboro
> P.O. Box 26170
> Greensboro, NC 27402-6170
> E-mail:         shdew_at_uncg.edu
> TEL:          336-334-4300
> FAX:        336-334-5399