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Abstract

Formula-based library budget allocation is a topic of much current interest, but most research to date has focused on the factors which affect or should affect budget allocation, rather than the functional units to which the budget is allocated. Typically, it is assumed that budget will be allocated amongst academic departments or programs, with factors such as use, demand, and program characteristics determining the proportion of budget that each department receives.

In this presentation, we propose and demonstrate a more granular, subject-focused model, where the monograph budget is allocated not amongst departments but amongst academic subjects as represented by course codes. This approach recognizes the interdependent nature of modern tertiary curricula where subject courses are shared between programs in complex ways.

During our session we will demonstrate how this practical, flexible approach was implemented at Zayed University, an English- and Arabic-medium university in the UAE, and show how interested participants can design and implement a similar approach at their own institutions. We will discuss the rationale for variables used in our formula, including subject enrolment, graduate and legacy program status, as well as a nonlinear measure of program age which facilitates rapid resourcing of new programs. Emphasis will be placed on how the choice of variables augments a subject-based allocation approach, making the model very robust to program and curriculum changes.

Keywords

library collection development, collection development, library budget allocation, library funds, library budget, collection assessment, library acquisitions

Document Type

Presentation

Publication Date

Winter 11-6-2025

Marion O. Finnegan, Zayed UniversityFollow

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0009-0004-7445-6585

Disciplines

Collection Development and Management | Library and Information Science

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