Measuring & evaluating return on investment

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Measuring & evaluating return on investment

Roxanne Missingham

University Librarian

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• Libraries support research and education which in themselves are difficult to assign

precise economic value.

• (Broadbent and Lofgren 1991 p 96)

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Value

• “The contingent valuation technique has been used for twenty years or so to estimate passive use values.”

• (NOAA Panel 1993)

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Return on investment and contingent valuation• Willingness-to-pay (WTP) in order to

secure the provision of a public good• Willing to accept for loss of quality of life

- willingness-to-accept (WTA)

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• Many studies including…• British Library:

The total value each year of the British Library is £363m - £59m comes directly from users of the services and £304m comes from wider society

• Public libraries in South Carolina – Direct economic impact of all public library

expenditures = $80 million – Public libraries bring almost $5 million (from federal

and private sources) that the state would not otherwise have

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• Florida Public Libraries– The total direct economic impact of Florida’s public

libraries on the state economy is $6 billion a year • St. Louis Public Library study

– Baltimore County Public Library returned $3-$6 in benefit per tax dollar. Birmingham Public Library returned $1.30-$2.70, King County Library System returned $5-$10 and Phoenix Public Library returned over $10. St. Louis Public Library returned $2.50-$5 in benefits per tax dollar.

• Public library studies – NSW and Victoria

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Our major investments: collections

• Focused study on value of collections to researchers at Group of 8 Universities

• Costs of collection building – purchase, processing, storage and retrieval

• $4.26 per volume per year CLIR report 1• 80% of the circulation is driven by just 6%

of the collection 2

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Web survey• administered at

The Australian National UniversityThe University of AdelaideThe University of Queensland

Validation

• outcomes confirmed through focus groups atMonash UniversityThe University of MelbourneThe University of New South WalesThe University of Sydney

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What is used?

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

B1: Use of print or physical information resources

Never

Sometimes

Frequently

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0

200

400

600

800

1,000

1,200

B2: Use of electronic information resources

Never

Sometimes

Frequently

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C1: Time devoted to use of information resources

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

500

Lessthan 1hour

1-5hours

6-10hours

11-15hours

16-20hours

21-40hours

Over 40hours

Axis

Title a. Print

b. Electronic

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Personal collections

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Relevance: quality not quantity

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0200400600800

10001200

Ease of access

Not applicable

Often fails to meetmy needsSometimes fails tomeet my needsMeets my needsadequately Meets my needs well

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Different funding scenarios for information resources

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Disciplines

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Findings

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Where to next?

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UK Scholarly Reading and the Value of Library Resources 2011 (Tenopir)• The library is more often the provider of scholarly articles as the

number of personal journal subscriptions declines. More than half the respondents do not have a personal subscription.

• Over half of article readings are from articles that are at least 18 months old, and 17% of readings are from articles that are ten years old or older.

• The library’s subscriptions are the primary source of article readings, 94% of which are obtained from the library’s e-journal collections.

• If the library were unavailable, value to academic work would be lost as 17% of the information obtained from the library would not be obtained from another source.

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• The library is not the main source of book readings; instead, academics are more likely to purchase books or receive them from a publisher.

• Of the 448 hours per year spent on scholarly reading, the average academic staff member spends 187 hours reading library-provided material, confirming the value of the library’s collections.

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Responding to these changing needs

• Value for money for resources• Engagement with users• Realignment

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