Search results

In the spring of 1982, I published an article in Reference Services Review on marketing libraries and information services. The article covered available literature on that topic from 1970 through part of 1981, the time period immediately following Kotler and Levy's significant and frequently cited article in the January 1969 issue of the Journal of Marketing, which was first to suggest the idea of marketing nonprofit organizations. The article published here is intended to update the earlier work in RSR and will cover the literature of marketing public, academic, special, and school libraries from 1982 to the present.

In times of fiscal stringency, administrators and managers are pressured to reduce costs, to find more innovative and more efficient methods of providing services. The largest portion of library expenditures is allocated for personnel (usually 65 percent or more of the budget), followed by 12 percent to 15 percent for materials. Thus these two areas are generally the first places where reductions are sought.

“So long, Old Paint!” The cowboy's plaintive farewell to his faithful horse is apt to be echoed as library administrators find that their mechanical and electromechanical equipment is either wearing out, or must be replaced because parts or service are no longer available.

The increasing complexity of the modern office environment is self‐evident: electronic calculators, computers with their terminals and peripherals, photocopiers and fax machines, postage meters, and folding and addressing machines. All are commonplace. And at some time or another, each one of these devices will require a service call and/or repair, at a cost varying from minor to expensive.

“See saw, Marjorie Daw….,” the old nursery rhyme phrase, recalls the general liability crisis of the mid‐1980s in the commercial insurance field. History will repeat itself, and administrators may well have cause to relive those days of high price and limited availability. Favorable economic conditions encourage commercial insurers to reduce premiums in order to sell more insurance and generate money to invest until needed for payment of claims.

As time goes by, procedures change, needs vary, equipment wears out or becomes obsolete, and materials are offered in new formats. Thus, the library administrator overseeing the budgetary process is continually confronted with the prospect of evaluating procedures and making changes to meet new requirements, replace or repair equipment, and to purchase new material or replace existing material in new formats.

In a previous column in the Winter 1990 issue (volume 4, number 4, page 37), it was pointed out that the budget document usually reflects out‐of‐pocket costs and not true costs. Here are some further examples.

In times of fiscal stringency, budget formulators are often hard pressed to reduce expenditures. While the requirement to “cut costs” may initially provide the impetus for public sector managers to find better, more effective, and less expensive methods of achieving operational objectives, over the long run similar solutions will tend to be limited or nonexistent. Ultimately, the only acceptable option may be to reduce budgetary expenditures by eliminating allocations in various categories.

For libraries, reducing operating costs is rarely a simple matter. Increases in expenses typically outpace inflation—a phenomenon common to institutions throughout the service sector of the economy. And while personnel and fringe benefits generally comprise the bulk of a library's operating costs, these can be among the most difficult to control. Indeed, outside factors like funding cutbacks, or simple attrition, are too often the means of reduction in these areas. Another approach is to cut back on materials purchases. But, although this may result in short‐term gains, it may also impair the library's effectiveness over the long term.

Libraries are labor‐intensive operations. And that labor is often in short supply due to budgetary restrictions or other influences beyond the immediate control of the library administration. When this happens, carrying out day‐to‐day activities may involve such an overwhelming portion of available staff time that planning and assessing the effectiveness of library activities may seem impossible.