I think you make an excellent point Jenny, but in the situation that David described – a request for income generation from above – that argument might fall on deaf ears!

 

 

How much does it cost to income generate? How much quality staff time and resources might be channelled away from providing an information service to support the Trust, into marketing and providing a service for other organisations, which is not what we are employed for? Even sourcing, ordering, replenishing, cleaning and maintaining a coffee machine must take valuable staff hours away from our core function. Are we barking up the wrong tree here?

 

Jenny

 

Jenny Lang

Head Librarian

Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust

Salisbury

Wiltshire

SP2 8BJ

01722 336262 ext 4469

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From: UK medical/ health care library community / information workers [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Burgess, Sam
Sent: 21 May 2010 12:55
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: income generation

An interesting point Daniel. 

 

It also makes me think that perhaps the emphasis is on the wrong part of library provision.  As you say – the biggest asset we have is access to information and our information skills, perhaps what we should be doing is approaching the issue from another angle, i.e what would it cost the Trust to obtain this information from elsewhere and what is the library actually SAVING the Trust by having this resource provided in-house.  If we can argue that we actually save the Trust thousands of pounds then perhaps they would be less likely to demand an increase in income generation – just a thought, but one worth considering I think.

 

Sam

 

Miss Sam Burgess BA(Hons) MCLIP
Head Librarian

Academy Library and Information Service
Swindon & North Wilts Health & Social Care Academy
Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Great Western Hospital
Marlborough Road
Swindon
Wiltshire
SN3 6BB

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NB: As I am deaf, I do NOT use the telephone personally.
But you can contact the Library on 01793 604593 / 6

 

 

 

 

Hi David,

 

Underlying this question is the possibility that the tone of NHS library services might be changing/might have to change from one of freely offering as much breadth and depth of service as possible in order to justify the budget to one where generating income has a larger and larger role. Although selling coffee and stationary can help, I would argue that essentially the biggest asset we have to ‘sell’ is our access to information and our information skills. One option is to sell this information access and skills to completely separate organisations (as per Chloe Stewart’s suggestion in a previous post). Another is to look at the services the library provides within its own organisation and decide which information services the library offers are part of its core remit (i.e. paid for by the organisation through the budget) and which are ‘extra’ services (i.e. paid for by the individual users/departments). An analogy can be drawn with the typical catering department – there are certain core services they offer like running the canteen, but if you’re putting on a conference and you want lunch provided then the catering department regard that as an extra service that you have pay for.

 

Regards,

 

Daniel

 

 

My many thanks for all the interesting and thought provoking ways of generating income for a library service. It is obvious that the success of many of these ideas lies in rigorous and continuous marketing and that will be taken forward. Many have asked me to summarise and I will do that on Tuesday. The one item that I intend to order is a coffee machine. I can just smell it now…..

 

Regards

 

David Law

Library Manager

Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust

New Cross Hospital

Wolverhampton

Tel: 01902 695322

 

Please note my new e-mail address: [log in to unmask]

 

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