Sometime ago (back in May) I posted a question to the List asking for help
on the formulae people were using in order to allocate book budgets. I only
had one response(thanks for that!) but several people wanted to know what
results I got.
Well, in the end I had to do some searching around among our old files and
folders and I came across a formula which had been used in the past here,
and which
I now understand and have adopted for use. Here it is, for anyone who might
be interested:

1. Calculate the number of students enrolled for each course over a certain
period (we use 2 years) (A)
        For us, this information came from the Registrar.
        You may want to make some modifications here e.g. courses that also
had a lab component
        were only counted once (as the lab course didn't really require any
books). This may vary from
        course to course or institution to institution.

2. Calculate the average price of a book in each subject area (B)
        For us, we use the Average prices of UK academic books published by
LISU.
        Work out also the average of these prices (or use LISU's average
price of a book) (C)

3. Deduct from budget to be allocated any outstanding commitments and
standing-order payments etc.
        We also had to arbitrarily decide on a proportion for references and
library science books,
        but each institution may deal with this in different ways.

4. The final calculation was then based on:
        course places (A) / average price of book (C) x actual cost of
book(B)
        this gave two figures: weighted course place totals (F) and (when
added all together)
        a new course places total (D)
        in this way, number of course places is weighted to account for the
relative costs of books;

        divide budget to be allocated by new course place total (D) to work
out average allocation per place (E)
        Multiply allocation (E) by weighted course place totals (F) for each
subject area (and round figure  up/down as appropriate).

As I said at the beginning, this formula is for anyone interested. It may
seem complicated at first, but it soon made sense when I started to go
through it with some figures. I was also able to set it up as an Excel
spreadsheet so that the calculations are now done automatically for me (and
hopefully I will not have to go through the same labours next time round).
I'm willing to share this with anyone who might be interested.

Regards,
Frank Trew
Senior Librarian
Richmond: the American International University in London
Tel: 020-8332-8297
E-mail: [log in to unmask]