CDL: Allocation formulas (response 1 - 2)

Original post:  >From   Anne Liebst <caliebst_at_ualr.edu>

I have been asked to investigate institutions using a formula for materials
budget allocation.  I have purposed a formula adapted from Guidelines for
Collections Development edited by David Perkins and the Guide to Budget
Allocation for Information Resources by Edward Shreevers.  I have run a
literature search and found many different approaches.  What works best?

==#1==

>From  	Joelle Hannert <jhannert_at_nmc.edu>
CDL: Allocation formulas

Hi Anne,

We implemented an allocation formula a couple years ago and it has worked really
well.  Our formula uses the following factors: class enrollment, usage, and cost
of books.  I played around with different weights for these three factors before
arriving at what we use now.  I'd be happy to send you a copy of the formula we
use if you're interested in exact percentages.

One caveat that I kept coming across in reading or asking other librarians is
that the allocation formula works best as a starting point for budgeting.  It
generally needs to be adjusted mid-year by collection development librarians to
account for all sorts of things that might come up (for instance, a new class in
a certain subject, a weeding project, a really expensive reference book, etc.)

Joelle Hannert

==#2==

From:  John Abbott  <abbottjp_at_appstate.edu>

We have moved away from an allocation formula for several reasons.  

1) 85% of the budget is for digital materials and most of that is in journal big
deals where
department subtotals cannot be reasonably separated out.  Books represent less than
15% of the materials budget and devoting staff time to narrowly parsing that sum
across
38 departments isn't worth the time.  We hold at least 1/2 of the book budget in
large
multi-disciplinary lines (Bus, Ed, Hum, SocSci, STM)  reflecting the reality that
most campus work is multi- or cross-discipilinary.  

2)  When we benchmarked against other similar schools, who would share their
allocations,
we were in the same ballpark.  

3)  Departments here have not asked to see a comparative allocation of the funds
spent on
their materials in a decade.  If they did ask we'd ask in return what it was
they felt they were not
getting and attempt to provide that from the multi-disciplinary lines to the
perceived point of
need.  

4)  If we need to run accreditation reports of amount spent, that can be done by
call number 
ranges.  This is more reflective of content rather than dept allocations.  How
to separate out
Psych from Social Work?  We sweep almost all that spending together for
accreditation
reports for either.

5) We have come to rely heavily on one-time, end of the year funds.  Expending
these is frequently
done in a few days, though that buying is carefully planned in advance.  The end
of year monies
don't always arrive and knowing how to set an allocation against that isn't
possible.

6)  Reports can be run on selector activity to see who is spending and how much
and these
data may be shared with all the selectors.   We have a few selectors that buy
most of the
materials, so there is peer pressure to both spend and not spend too much.

Overall, we dropped the formula as not having a strong cost to benefit for a
small portion of
the budget.  The library enjoys high-trust with the campus and LibQual survey
results
are good.  It would be interesting to run a citation analysis on 'allocation
formula' across
the last 40 years to see how those publications fall.  My guess is the number of
articles published on this topic in the last 10 years is very small.