Allocation Formula
Considerations
Supply
Demand
Cost
Common allocation Factors
• Number of students (grad/undergrad)
• Number of courses (grad/undergrad)
• Or Number of credits (grad/undergrad)
• Number of faculty
• Cost of acquiring materials
• Use (issue: not discipline specific)
Factors may be weighted to reflect institutional
values
Other Factors
• Accreditation requirement
• New programs
• Increased or changing emphases
• How well previous year’s allocation met needs
• Formats
• LC classes shared by multiple departments
(collection development profiles)
Other Factors
• Ability to modify formula as needed
• % of University budget/institutional priority
(PBA)can be on department or program level
• Some institutions allocation by subject areas:
humanities, sciences, social science,
technology, professional programs
• Some assign interdisciplinary formats---databases or journals to the library general
fund
Test Effectiveness
• Minor changes can make unexpected results
• Impact on reduced allocation could go below
level needed to sustain subscriptions or
packages
• Things not adequately covered by
departmental allocation(for example,
allocation would not cover journals in Library’s
budget)
Additional Considerations
• Document decision process
– Source of data
– Any special allocations for new programs, (one
time or recurring) etc
– Factors that are weighted—(Cross says that
weighting factors replaces objectivity with
subjectivity)
Cross, R. L (2011). Budget allocation formulas: magic or illusion? The Bottom Line: Managing Library
Finances. 24 (1), 63-67
Additional Considerations
• Big ticket items
• Special buying opportunities
• PBA keeps reflects changing priorities in a
single factor
• Interlibrary loan costs
• Inflation
Subcommittee Meetings
• Established factors that will be weighted
(with input from the library faculty)
• Assigned weights to the factors
• Considered weighting graduate students by
credit hours and/or by FTES
• Experimented with hypothetical data to see
impact of the weighted factors