Detailed costings within multi-function organisations is always a difficult
issue and to make meaningful comparisons between libraries needs a lot more
thought than just plonking raw percentage costs on the table. Premises
costs for example can vary hugely from the real cost of maintaining a high
street site including lost rental income, maintenance and security to no
premises costs whatsoever because everything is allocated to an Estates
Department and taken care of centrally. For those of us outside the public
sector there are no hard and fast rules and policy tends to reflect a
mixture of internal power structures and the current state of the tax and
accounting rules. At the BMA my "Premises Costs" budget line has varied
quite a lot over the years although the space occupied by the library has
remained essentially the same - and before we moved in was mostly used as
one of the few badminton courts in the country to enjoy 2* listing.
I was reading this thread and feeling quietly smug that we spend about 25%
of our net budget on the collections, but a little thought reminded me that
my security, HR, accounting and ICT costs weren't included in this
calculation (though we obviously factor them into service costing) - and
goodness knows what else public librarans have to pay for that I don't.
Living as I do in Britain's most hopeless local authority, spending nearly
10% of the budget on books sounds like nirvana. I'm not sure if my local
branch has had its new book for 2004 yet. . .
Tony McSean
David McMenemy
<[log in to unmask] To: [log in to unmask]
RATH.AC.UK> cc:
Sent by: Chartered bcc:
Library and Subject: Re: Press Release from the Laser Foundation - 'Who's in Charge?'
Information
Professionals
<[log in to unmask]
.UK>
29/04/04 11:08
Please respond to
Chartered Library and
Information
Professionals
Hi Andrew,
I'm a little confused with regards the issue you raise regarding staff
expenditure. Public libraries will always have to spend a significant
portion of their budget on staffing, simply because of the network of
venues
they need to resource. When I worked for Glasgow Council we had over 30
service points to staff, many of them large libraries.
Unlike the BBC, who can hide staffing costs by farming out contracts for
programme making to private companies, public libraries manage and operate
their own service points. Rather than cutting staff numbers, there needs
to
be an increase in order to open libraries longer. Indeed isn't that one of
the points made by Mr Coates - libraries need to be open longer.
Just my opinion.
Cheers
David
---------------------------------------
David McMenemy
Lecturer,
Graduate School of Informatics,
Department of Computer and Information Sciences,
University of Strathclyde,
Livingstone Tower,
26 Richmond Street,
Glasgow.
G1 1XH
U.K.
Tel: 0141-548-3045
email: [log in to unmask]
www.cis.strath.ac.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: Chartered Library and Information Professionals
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andrew Sandeman
Sent: 29 April 2004 10:26
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Press Release from the Laser Foundation - 'Who's in Charge?'
John:
you are right about Hampshire but this sort of response (in general, I
really don't want to personalise this) - makes me despair, because it
discourages debate on the real issue.
Even at 55% (LISU), staffing costs are damagingly high and the effects
(yes,
there are other factors as well) include LISU 2003 p.4 "Only 9.6% of total
libraries expenditure was on books in 2001-02."
We SHOULD be concerned that
a) most of our (Paying) customers still want a good range of books etc.as
their top priority
b) we are NOT spending 90% of our budget on what they want.
There are some good things happening out there, but they need to deepen and
spread very
rapidly if libraries are to recover their relevance to most of the general
public.
Regards,
Andrew
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Briggs" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 28 April 2004 16:52
Subject: Re: Press Release from the Laser Foundation - 'Who's in Charge?'
> Andrew Sandeman wrote:
> > A pity that a report which makes some important points -
> > controversial maybe, but the basic thrust is well supported by
> > evidence - should be
met
> > with this sort of 'debate'.
> >
> > Hopefully, perhaps elsewhere, we can have a more considered
> > discussion about how to achieve the STEP CHANGE in effectiveness
> > which is so clearly needed.
> >
> > For example, it looks as if many authorities spend (roughly) two
> > thirds
of
> > their budget on staffing,
> > whereas I understand that the BBC spend approx.20%.
> >
>
> The figures quoted by the report are that Hampshire spends
> approximately half of its 'funds' on "staff", which is in line with
> the UK as a whole
(see
> Appendix 2).
>
> John Briggs
>
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