The Collection Budget Fund Structure

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Library Collections, Acquisitions, & TechnicalServices

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The Collection Budget Fund Structure: A CaseStudy Illustrating the Need for CollaborationBetween Collection Development and Acquisitions

Debbi A. Smith

To cite this article:Debbi A. Smith (2014) The Collection Budget Fund Structure: A Case Study

Illustrating the Need for Collaboration Between Collection Development and Acquisitions,Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services, 38:3-4, 92-98

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LIBRARY COLLECTIONS, ACQUISITIONS & TECHNICAL SERVICES, 38: 9298, 2014

Published with license by Taylor & Francis

ISSN: 1464-9055 print / 1873-1821 online

DOI: 10.1080/14649055.2015.1082316

The Collection Budget Fund Structure: A Case Study

Illustrating the Need for Collaboration BetweenCollection Development and Acquisitions

Debbi A. Smith

Adelphi University Libraries, Garden City, New York, USA

Collection Development and Acquisitions staff in a library have a responsibility to account

for the sound and responsible expenditure of library budgets. They need to communicate

their needs about the information required from the fund code structure in their Integrated

Library System to perform their job duties and demonstrate sound fiscal management. When

fund codes lose the granularity that provides information on the costs of different formats by

subject discipline or academic department there is a subsequent loss in fiscal accountability

and the ability to accurately project anticipated inflationary costs for formats in different

disciplines. When the Acquisitions Unit at the Adelphi University Libraries streamlined the

fund codestructure the loss of granularity had a major impact on budget management and fiscal

accountability for Collection Development. This unintended consequence points to the need

for close collaboration and mutual understanding of needs between Collection Development

and Acquisitions.

Keywords: fund codes, fiscal accountability, fund structure, acquisitions, collection develop-

ment, academic libraries

INTRODUCTION

Collection development and acquisitions have two very dis-

tinct, but complementary, roles in an academic library. Col-

lection development is a process that determines strategies

to meet the long- and short-term research and informa-

tion needs of the users of an institution; budget alloca-

tions with a related fund code structure then establish the

priorities for allocating funds to address those strategies.

Acquisitions implements collection selection decisions by

ordering and obtaining desired resources. Fund code struc-

ture, within the context of fund accounting, allows acqui-

sitions to provide fiscal accountability by monitoring and

reporting on resource support for each academic depart-ment. Thus, a robust fund accounting structure is a core

tool for both collection development and acquisitions, with

fund codes, and the hierarchy in which they are arranged

Debbi A. SmithAddress correspondence to Debbi A. Smith, Collection Development

and Management Librarian, Adelphi University Libraries, 1 South Avenue,

P.O. Box 701, Garden City, NY 11530-0701. E-mail: [email protected]

organizing the strategic allocation of the librarys materialbudget.

This article presents a case study of the issues that can

result when the function of a fund code structure in provid-

ing fiscal accountability is viewed differently by the collec-

tion development and acquisitions units of a library. This

case study is a follow up to an article published in this

journal in 2009 which describes a re-design of the fund ac-

count structure by acquisitions at the Adelphi University Li-

braries (AUL) which condensed fund codes and added pre-

encumbrances for subscription titles (Pomerantz & White,

2009). The effects on budget management and fiscal account-

ability, and the modifications to the fund code structure that

were subsequently implemented, are the subject of this casestudy.

HISTORY AND BACKGROUND

Adelphi University is a medium-sized private institution with

diverse liberal arts and sciences undergraduate programs,

as well as five professional schools in business, education,

nursing, psychology, and social work. The main campus is


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THE COLLECTION BUDGET FUND STRUCTURE 93

in Garden City, NY, with libraries at the satellite centers in

Manhattan, Hauppauge, and Hudson Valley, NY. The Uni-

versity Libraries have access to approximately 87,293 unique

full-text electronic journals through 251 databases and col-

lectively subscribe to 483 print periodicals and 376 continua-

tions. In addition, the libraries own 618,779 monograph vol-

umes, of which 27,105 are in e-format, have access through

subscriptions to 137,618 e-book titles, and have over 6,000

demand driven acquisition (DDA) records for e-books in the

catalog. There are also 28,948 media and 789,749 microfor-

mat items in the collection (Adelphi University Holdings,

August 31, 2014). Through the book vendor, Yankee Book

Peddler (YBP), the libraries have an online slip plan gen-

erated by subject specific profiles, but there is no physical

approval plan. Thus, there are neither fund codes necessary

to document approval plan expenditures, nor are there ones

that might be necessary at larger research institutions, e.g.,

for endowment funds, grant funds, and large gift funds.

Materials budgeting and selection processes are overseen

by the collection development and management librarian atthe Garden City campus; technical services, including ac-

quisitions and cataloging, is also located at this main cam-

pus and in the same work area as the collection develop-

ment librarian. Aside from the librarians, there are three staff

members in the collection development unit, four members

in acquisitions, and three in cataloging. An open office plan

facilitates constant interactions among all, with any questions

that arise readily addressed and answered by the appropriate

personnel.

University administration distributes the materials budget

for each of the four libraries along format lines of books,

continuations, periodicals, microforms, non-print media, and

electronic resources, but leaves the ultimate allocation offunds to the discretion of the AUL (Smith, 2008). Collection

development allocates the funds by departmental unit, and

specific budgetary fund codes by department and format are

linked to the university administrations lines (that indicate

which lines are drawn from to pay library invoices). It is the

intended departmental user of material that triggers the fund

code assigned rather than the subject matter in and of itself.

For example, if a faculty member from the School of Social

Work requests a book that has a psychology call number, the

fund code used to order it would be for social work and not

psychology.

AULs intent is to support the universitys goals by collect-

ingand maintainingmaterials in allformats at theappropriatedepth and breadth to support the degree programs offered by

each department/school. The fiscal year runs from Septem-

ber 1 to August 31 of the next year, and after a fiscal year

is closed AUL is expected to produce a report for univer-

sity administration detailing AUL support for each academic

department. This would include the cost of all books, contin-

uations, journals, media, and electronic resources purchased

or subscribed to for each department, regardless of the for-

mat of the resource. This expenditure report is a primary

way of demonstrating AULs sound fiscal management to the

university administration.

Deciding on how to allocate the materials budget is no

small task given that it is the primary tool for collection de-

velopment; collecting priorities are necessarily reflected in

the overall amount of funds assigned to each academic de-

partment. The yearly appropriation given to each fund line

by the collection development and management librarian re-

flects the anticipated inflationary increase for that particu-

lar format. Thus, appropriations reflect the anticipated costs

for the coming year, as well as the anticipated changes in

purchasing for a particular format; in essence, they act as

projected encumbrances.

Before changes were made to the fund code structure,

subject selectors placed a fund code on any resource they

ordered, which was then approved by the collection develop-

ment and management librarian. The order was then passed

on to acquisitions, which placed the order with the appropri-

ate vendor and entered an order record in Millennium (now

Sierra, the Innovative Interfaces upgrade from Millennium).Periodicals and continuations were also coded according to

the department originating the request for the ongoing re-

source. In this manner, all orders were able to be traced by the

fund code they were initially assigned. Subject selectors had

the ability to monitor their fund reports for their specific sub-

ject areas via Millennium. They could see their allocations

for each fund line, the amount encumbered (ordered) and

expended (received and invoiced), and the free, unencum-

bered balances. Monthly summary reports were also sent to

each selector as reminders to both check fund balances and

to keep on track with ordering non-fixed expenses. These

reports summarized overall departmental spending by indi-

vidual format lines.The basic fund code structure was composed of a three-

letter mnemonic code for a department followed by a letter

indicating the format of the item ordered. Using the busi-

ness school as an example, the fund code structure for items

supporting their programs would have been:

BUSB: business books,

BUSN: business non-print,

BUSC: business continuations, and

BUSP: business periodicals.

A subject selector would then be able to log onto Millen-

nium and, transparently and seamlessly, see a hierarchicaldepartmental report, or wait until the monthly report run

through Millennium and sent out by the collection devel-

opment librarian to all selectors. There were a total of 35

mnemonic codes representing the individual schools and de-

partments whose curricula the library supported. Acquisi-

tions staff were able to place orders and generate invoices by

looking at the letter after the three-letter subject mnemonic

code to determine the format of the item and what bud-

get line it subsequently needed to be drawn against. Any


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94 D. A. SMITH

TABLE 1

Sample Fund Report for Business Before

Modifications

Free Cash

Business Appropriation Expenditure Encumbrance Balance Balance

BUSB $10,000 $1,498 $797 $7,705 $8,502

BUSN $1,000 $343 $225 $432 $657BUSC $15,000 $8,639 $102 $6,259 $6,361BUSP $12,000 $4,462 $982 $6,556 $7,538Total $38,000 $14,942 $2,106 $20,952 $23,058

question that an acquisitions staff member might have had

could be easily answered by the librarian or a staff member

in the collection development unit since they were all located

in the same office.

As a brief fund accounting explanation, each fund code

would be given an appropriation to reflect the amount indi-

cated by the fund formula allocation process, along with any

projected inflationary increases or changes for that formatfor the coming year. When an order would be placed, funds

would be encumbered; when the item ordered would be re-

ceived, an invoice for it would be paid and the encumbered

funds would be disencumbered and go into the expenditure

column. The cash balance would then indicate the appropri-

ation remaining after items have been received and invoiced

while the free balance would indicate the appropriation re-

maining after accounting for these invoiced items and those

items still on order. Using the business school again as an

example, a sample departmental report (with hypothetical

numbers) would have been as shown in Table 1. It was the

intention of collection development to have acquisitions add

additional fund codes to differentiate between a journal thatwas subscribed to in print (i.e., BUSP) from one that was

subscribed to online as an electronic resource (i.e., by adding

an E to BUSP and generating the fund code BUSPE).

In 2009, White and Pomerantz at Adelphi University pub-

lished an article in this journal entitled, Re-Modeling ILS

Acquisitions Data to Financially Transition from Print to

Digital Formats(Pomerantz & White, 2009). Their hypoth-

esis was that the shift in serials subscriptions from print to

digital formats required a need to alter not only acquisitions

procedures but also fund codes within the librarys Innova-

tive Interfaces Millennium acquisitions module. Their defi-

nition of subscriptions encompassed periodicals, databases,

and continuations in print and e-format as well as microfor-mats. They concluded that their restructuring of and collapse

of fund code structures for continuing resources would en-

able the AUL to better account for continuing resources and

track changing patterns of spending.

The present article, whose author was at the time and re-

mains the collection development and management librarian

for AUL, argues that, in spite of all good intentions, the ac-

tual results of fund restructuring decisions to streamline

acquisition workflows in the short-run had a long-term neg-

ative impact on workflows, budget management, fiscal ac-

countability, and collection development. This article further

outlines subsequent steps that have been taken with acquisi-

tions to address the results of this restructuring and to move

forward with a more robust fund code structure that trans-

parently addresses the growth in online resources and allows

accurate reporting by subject and format. In addition, new

codes added to the fund code structure have allowed AUL to

account for the growth of materials that are accessed rather

than owned and that are selected by patrons rather than by

subject specialists.

LITERATURE REVIEW

A literature review on fund code structure and its rela-

tion to fiscal accountability does not reveal much research

in this area, nor about the need for acquisitions and col-

lection development to collaborate in this area. Johnson

(2014, p. 130) does note that Demonstrating accountabil-ity to parent organizations and funding agencies is an im-

portant responsibility and that libraries often will pro-

vide this accountability by reporting what was acquired.

In this context she states that reducing the number of

fund lines can impede this process (Johnson, 2014). Wit-

tenbachs 2005 article describes a process by the acqui-

sitions department at the University of California, River-

side, to create a fund code structure for monographs

within Innovative Interfaces that reflected subject disciplines

(Wittenbach, 2005). Similar to what was done at Adelphi,

the first four characters of their code was a mnemonic for

the subject, and the last character reflected whether a book

order was for an approval item, a firm order, a standing order,part of a serial, or for foreign approvals. VanDuinkerken and

colleagues (2008) article discusses the need for a flexible

fund structure to meet library and user needs. They elabo-

rate on their experience at Texas A&M University to create

a new fund code structure that reflects whether material was

selected by library users or by subject selectors. While their

materials budget is broken out in a manner not applicable

to AULs needs (e.g., fund lines for approval plans, user re-

quests, big ticket items, proposal items), they do point to

a fund structure that allows selectors to track spending in

the major collection areas of monographs, serials, and elec-

tronic resources. Oparanozie, who is head of acquisitions at

her institution, notes that subject selectors need to be ableto obtain fund accounting information on demand, and that

integrated library systems make it possible for selectors to

view such information online by themselves (Oparanozie,

2000). Her article outlines how she makes it possible for

selectors to monitor their monograph budgets online. In her

judgment, acquisitions has a role as a service provider to sub-

ject selectors; she does not view collection development as a

collaborator in the process. In this context, she cites Ogburn

and Rices article that also discusses the need for acquisitions


5/8


departments to provide service to librarians with collection

development responsibilities (Ogburn & Rice, 1991).

The June 2005 issue ofAgainst the Graincontains sev-

eral articles about communication issues between collection

development and acquisitions, but none directly address the

need for the two areas to collaborate on fund code structure

and fiscal accountability. Dubose (2005) points out the obvi-

ous need to have training and communication so that acqui-

sitions and collection development understand each others

needs. Mays (2005) posits that while collection development

librarians focus more on the intellectual tools of subject se-

lection, acquisition librarians are the business arm that pur-

chases and processes the selected materials. While she cites

areas of needed collaboration, such as budget allocations,

she does not discuss collaborating on the fund code structure

for inputting these budget allocations. Lewis and Pistorius

(2005) discuss the need for collection development librari-

ans to understand the reasons behind supplying acquisitions

with full bibliographic and related information when mate-

rial is ordered so that the correct item is ordered, received,and placed in the desired final location. However, they do not

address what acquisition needs to know about the needs of

collection development.

Fund Structure and Encumbrance Changes

At the AUL, acquisitions hypothesized that better budget

management could be attained by collapsing specific sub-

ject and format fund codes into a general overall format

code for subscriptions: SWBS, their code for all Swirbul

Library subscriptions, regardless of whether the format was

print or electronic, or what the function of the item was.This fund collapsed the format of the resource and encom-

passed all subscriptions of print journal subscriptions, single

title e-journals, e-journal packages, databases, continuations

in print and e-format, and microfilm journal and newspa-

per subscriptions. In retrospect, acquisitions may have held

this point-of-view because the acquisitions librarian and as-

sociate dean both came from a special library background

(law and medicine, respectively); because they did not have

a multi-disciplinary academic background they may not have

understood the need for granularity that the collection devel-

opment librarian was advocating.

From the fund accounting point-of-view held by collec-

tion development, what acquisitions considered to be sep-arate fund codes for each department was in reality one

mnemonic code with different endings that reflected for-

mat. The code system was not complex, and allocation and

invoicing was not a complicated or confusing process for

acquisitions or collection development staff. Collection de-

velopment would review or assign the fund code for each

item selected, and acquisitions needed to only look at the last

letter of the code to determine the accounting line to draw

the invoice against.

TABLE 2

Sample Fund Report for Business after Modifications

Free Cash


BUSB $10,000 $1,498 $797 $7,705 $8,502BUSN $1,000 $343 $225 $432 $657

Total $11,000 $1,841 $1,022 $8,137 $9,159

Thus, in the example previously given for business, the

subject specific fund codes BUSC (continuations) and BUSP

(periodicals) were allcollapsed into SWBS, along with allthe

analagous fund codes for each academic department. With

business again as an example, when selectors would check

their departmental fund reports they would see the following

as shown in Table 2. A comparison of Tables 1 and 2 shows

that subject selectors lost a simple and transparent way of

seeing their entire departmental budget through Millennium.

Collapsing subject/format funds into one general fund for

all subscriptions took away the ability to place an allocationfor business continuations and periodicals into the Integrated

Library System (ILS) and then seamlessly follow the en-

cumbrances and expenditures against it over the course of

the fiscal year. Acquisitions put the former fund codes into

an open field in the item records and suggested that reports

could be run by these codes or by call numbers to obtain

desired information.

There were also analogous fund codes for multidisci-

plinary or interdisciplinary resources where more than one

department used the material. These general fund codeswere:

GENB: general books,

GENN: general non-print, GENC: general continuations, and

GENP: general periodicals.

These general/multidisciplinary funds for continuations

and periodicals were collapsed into the same Swirbul sub-

scription fund, SWBS, along with the subject specific funds.

In addition, the fund codes for the three center libraries

were collapsed. The book funds, which had originally been

broken out by subject, were collapsed into one general book

fund and, as had been done at the main Swirbul library,

continuation and periodical codes were collapsed into one

subscription code. For example, while the Manhattan cam-

pus supports programs in social work, nursing, and educa-tion, the related book fund codes for these subjects (MABS,

MABN, MABE) were collapsed into one fund, MANB

(Manhattan books). Collection development, however, ques-

tioned the suggestion that departmental spending could be

tracked by running reports by call number given the interdis-

ciplinary nature of these disciplines.

A further issue was that acquisitions populated the en-

cumbrance field in Millennium with amounts they predicted

would be the renewal obligation for each subscription title,


6/8

96 D. A. SMITH

with the anticipation that it would make it easier to see what

funds were available for new purchases. The collection de-

velopment point-of-view was that the allocation for a fund

indicated the amount that was expected to be expended for

the items in that fund line in the coming fiscal year. Mil-

lennium encumbrances thus came to include amounts that

were perceived would be spent in the coming year, as well

as amounts for new purchases that had been received into

Millennium but not yet invoiced/paid to a vendor.

Impact of Changes

Acquisitions quickly realized that for basic reporting pur-

poses to the library and university administration the single

fund code for subscriptions needed to be broken out into

separate fund codes for periodicals, continuations, and elec-

tronic resources. E-journals, e-books, and databases, regard-

less of their content, function, and differing inflationary cost

trajectories, were paid out of the generic electronic resources

line. These modifications were still not granular enough forcollection development to have timely access to complete

spending information. Collection development still consid-

ered that the fund consolidation changes impacted the ability

to easily and transparently show library expenditures for each

academic department.

The end of the fiscal year revealed several challenges for

obtaining library expenditures by academic department for

university administration. Acquisitions was not able to run

reports on expenditures for continuing subscriptions using

the fund codes that had been placed in a separate field. It

was discovered the codes had been parsed-out in a variable

length field and it was not possible to pull the report through

the statistics module in Millennium. The create lists func-tion was also not able to provide statistical analysis because

in Millennium, again, statistics can only be garnered from

fixed-length fields and in order to pull data from a variable

length field a list had to be run with the codes as one of the

outputs. For the fiscal year in question the payment records

for titles had to be looked up individually and allocated to

the appropriate department.

In addition, there was difficulty determining what items

had been ordered for the various departments that the center

libraries had served. For example, because of the interdisci-

plinary nature of many call numbers, it was not clear what

departments in the Manhattan Center had requested specific

items (i.e., RC could have come from an item for the Schoolof Nursing or The Gordon F. Derner Institute of Advanced

Psychological Studies, both of which teach classes at this

center).

A partial solution by acquisitions was to put the former

fund codes for subscriptions into an open fixed-length field,

which waslogistically easier for them than putting them back

into the fund code structure. However, this only partially

alleviated the problem as reports would still have to be run to

obtain the needed information. In addition, in order to be able

to run reports a module had to be purchased from Innovative

Interfaces to make this field sortable. The information could

not be integrated into the departmental subject hierarchy in

Millennium and there was still a need to extract and transfer

pertinent information to an Excel spreadsheet to obtain a full

view of library expenditures by department.

There was a further issue concerning the encumbrance

column in the funds reports since the column reflected items

that had been ordered during the course of the fiscal year,

as well as items that had been predicted to come in by the

end of the fiscal year, but did not. In addition, if the ac-

tual cost of a received item that had been pre-encumbered

was more or less that the pre-encumbered amount when the

item was disencumbered there was either a negative encum-

brance (if the item cost more than predicted) or funds were

left in the encumbered column (if the item cost less than

had been predicted). Toward the end of the fiscal year, col-

lection development was not able to ascertain how much

money actually left to spend or be moved to other budget

lines.

Remedial Steps

In 2012, there was both a new acquisitions librarianand a new

associate dean of technical services at AUL. They both had

backgrounds in libraries that were part of large academic and

research institutions, something which their predecessors, as

previously noted, did not possess. Each independently ana-

lyzed Millennium and the fund code structure and both came

to the conclusion that the departmental information for pe-

riodicals and continuations should be restored into the fund

code structure. There was a consensus among acquisitions,

the associate dean and collection development that this would

allow for more detailed and flexible reporting in much less

time. Communication and open discourse resulted in collab-

oration between collection development and acquisitions to

not only restore the original codes back into the fund struc-

ture, but to also put in additional funds that would track the

ongoing migration from print to online resources by specific

subject areas, much as the collection development librarian

had been advocating. The new funds continue to indicate the

function and format of an item. Again using the business

school as an example, codes were added to the fund structure

in Sierra (the replacement to Millennium) as follows, with

new codes in italics:

BUSB: business print books, BUSBE: business e-books,

BUSN: business non-print/media,

BUSC: business continuations,

BUSCE: business e-continuations,

BUSP: business print periodicals, and

BUSPE: business e-journals.

Table 3 indicates a sample departmental report with this

structure. Both collection development and acquisitions also


7/8


TABLE 3

Current Fund Report for Business

Free Cash


BUSB $5,000 $1,000 $600 $3,400 $4,000BUSBE $5,000 $498 $197 $4,305 $4,502

BUSN $1,000 $343 $225 $432 $657BUSC $10,000 $8,000 $52 $1,948 $2,000BUSCE $5,000 $639 $50 $4,311 $4,361BUSP $6,000 $2,462 $582 $2,956 $3,538BUSPE $6,000 $2,000 $400 $3,600 $4,000Total $38,000 $14,942 $2,106 $20,952 $23,058

agreed that fund allocations reflect anticipated costs for the

coming fiscal year and the practice of pre-encumbering funds

was stopped. Collection development and acquisitions now

hold monthly meetings with library administration to deter-

mine whether allocations have to be moved among report-

ing lines to account for unanticipated changes in purchasing

patterns. This collaboration and communication strengthensAULs ability to demonstrate its fiscal responsibility to uni-

versity administration for the materials budget.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The work of technical services must be done in the context of

fiscal accountability. Procedures should not be streamlined

if the results impede ready access to information and hinder

the ability to account for how funds are expended by disci-

pline and format. In the case of the AUL, a medium-sized

academic library where the fund account structure is rela-tively uncomplicated and is integrated into the accounting

structure of university budget lines, the ability to continually

create codes and modify the fund structure is the best way to

document curriculum changes, as well as collection format

changes and migrations.

For example, subject selectors have requested additional

fund codes to better analyze their departmental needs. In

one case, the English liaison requested that the singular fund

code for the department be broken out into two codes to

differentiate between items purchased for literary criticism

as opposed to literature (ENC for criticism and ENG for

literature).

In terms of format changes and migration, a DDA programwith Ebrary through the book vendor, YBP, was initiated

and fund codes were put in place to track the amount of

money being used forshort-termloans on e-books. In another

case, streaming is replacing purchases of DVDs and codes

have been created to track spending on access to streaming

media (i.e., BUSN would indicate the purchase of a DVD

while BUSNE would indicate funds spend on streaming).

For the coming fiscal year fund codes will be put in place

for department specific databases which up until now have

been tracked with a separate spreadsheet and paid out of the

general electronic resources line.

These new fund codes allow the AUL to demonstrate to

university administration that the needs of library users are

increasingly being met with online resources rather than tra-

ditional formats. They can be analyzed to demonstrate that

library funds are being used for access to just in time dig-

ital resources rather than ownership of just in case print

materials. This migration in formats can be tracked by disci-

pline, and not just generically, because of a robust fund code

structure.

Although it is true that multidisciplinary databases and

bundled e-journal packages are used by multiple departments

and it is often difficult to assign a cost to each department,

this makes it more incumbent for collection development to

be able to see what electronic resources are being used exclu-

sively by one department. Having general fund codes along-

side subject specific codes allows collection development to

track the progression of electronic resources to multidisci-

plinary packages. Further accountability will be provided bythe implementation of an electronic resources management

tool, which will draw from the information in Sierra to track

and project funding needs.

Other libraries considering a modification to their fund

code structure might investigate whether their ILS would al-

low them to test out the restructure on one branch as a test

site (if part of a multi-library system) or on one discipline

in order to determine whether the changes gave the results

that had been anticipated or desired. Improving work flows

is a laudable goal, but, whenever possible, it is beneficial to

test out new procedures before executing a complete over-

haul. In addition, such large scale proposed changes should

be brought before appropriate library staff and relevant com-mittees for full discussion rather than just being vetted at the

administrative level; if there is concern that ones perspec-

tive is not being understood it may be helpful to expand the

conversation to additional interested parties.

Collection development and acquisitions are truly part-

ners in allocating and expending the library materials bud-

get. Modifications to a fund code structure can be made at

the beginning of a fiscal year based on an analysis of needs

and changes that had arisen over the previous year. Thus,

the structure can be nimble and flexible enough to address

and monitor the continuing (and often unforeseen) format

migrations in library resources, communicate the strategic

priorities of the collections budget, and demonstrate soundfiscal management.

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Documents

The Collection Budget Fund Structure