[Publib] RE: question for Mass. PubLibbers/Never Mind

Fri Jan 2 10:57:59 EST 2009

I found the pie chart. And it wasn't in the Globe.

Kevin O'Kelly
Reference and Cataloging Librarian
Somerville Public Library
79 Highland Ave.
Somerville, MA 02143
(617)-623-5000

-----Original Message-----
From: "Kevin Okelly" <KOkelly at minlib.net>
To: publib at webjunction.org
Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 09:51:16 -0500
Subject: [Publib] RE: question for Mass. PubLibbers

> Does anyone remember a pie chart that appeared in the Boston Globe
> *probably* within the last two months that showed a breakdown of each
> dollar spent by the Massachusetts state government--e.g., how many
> cents
> of each dollar were spent on schools, roads, etc? 
> 
> I am trying to track it down and if anyone could cough up an
> approximate
> date it would be most helpful.
> 
> In any case--Happy New Year!
> 
> Kevin
> 
> Kevin O'Kelly
> Reference and Cataloging Librarian
> Somerville Public Library
> 79 Highland Ave.
> Somerville, MA 02143
> (617)-623-5000
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Sanderson, James W." <jsanderson at nngov.com>
> To: George Bergstrom <vcpl.reference.librarian at gmail.com>, "Lockhart,
> William  S." <lockhartws at elpasotexas.gov>
> Cc: "LIBREF-L at listserv.kent.edu" <LIBREF-L at listserv.kent.edu>,
> "publib at webjunction.org" <publib at webjunction.org>
> Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:31:25 -0500
> Subject: RE: [Publib] Cost per Reference Transaction
> 
> > This can be even more complex.  In many libraries the duties of the
> > reference staff go beyond reference, they may well do collection
> > development for the circulating collection, programming, web site
> work
> > etc.  Thus a portion of their salary is non-reference related and
> needs
> > to be taken out of the calculation.  I suppose you could do an hourly
> > average of the departments salaries and then divide by the length of
> an
> > average transaction to get an estimate.
> > Then again what sources were used, what was the initial cost of the
> > source? Ongoing costs for subscriptions?
> > 
> > 
> > James W. Sanderson
> > Supervising Librarian
> > West Avenue Library
> > Newport News Public Library
> > 2907 West Avenue
> > Newport News, Virginia. 23607
> > (757) 247-8505
> > (757) 247-2344
> > www.nngov.com/library
> > From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org
> > [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of George Bergstrom
> > Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 12:22 PM
> > To: Lockhart, William S.
> > Cc: LIBREF-L at listserv.kent.edu; publib at webjunction.org
> > Subject: Re: [Publib] Cost per Reference Transaction
> > 
> > Bill,
> > 
> >      What a fascinating question.  Lets take a look at it, not
> knowing
> > the particulars of your library, who is asking the question or what
> > they may want to know/how it will be used...  you will get very
> > different numbers depending on what you use.
> > 
> > If you use salary:
> > 
> > Say the total salary of the department is $600,000 (not counting
> > benefits) and the total transactions is 200,000/yr then you get $3
> per
> > transaction
> > 
> > Say the total materials budget is only $400,000 then you get $2 per
> > transaction
> > 
> > But the transaction is never completed by just the new books from
> 2008
> > (or for that mater the entire yearly materials budget...)  so my
> > initial gut would be something like using the value of the entire
> > reference collection, the value of the salaries of the entire
> reference
> > staff, and possibly adding some value for the internet and
> > infrastructure...
> > 
> > So if salary is $600,000 and new materials is $400,000 and the rest
> of
> > the collection is $1,000,000 (depreciation) then you have $10 per
> > transaction.  Now if you then added in the value of the staff
> benefits,
> > and the other infrastructure I could see this easily doubling to $20
> or
> > more per transaction.
> > 
> > Now we come to the who wants the numbers and for what purpose.  If
> > admin wants the numbers for budgeting purposes, then maybe the
> smaller
> > numbers are better (look we can answer each question for $1 each!) 
> but
> > if they are trying to find a number for promotion of the
> > service/possible bond measures then the bigger numbers seem to look
> > better (look if we charged for our service per transaction it would
> be
> > $20 each, but you get it for the bargain price of  $x per $1000 of
> > property value...)
> > 
> > Thinking about it in these terms should help you identify what
> > components to use in your equation, and hopefully help justify your
> > choices.
> > 
> > -George
> > On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 11:28 AM, Lockhart, William S.
> > <lockhartws at elpasotexas.gov<mailto:lockhartws at elpasotexas.gov>>
> wrote:
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Please excuse the cross posting.  I have been asked to find a formula
> > for the average cost of a reference transaction for our system.  We
> are
> > establishing a series of benchmarks to represent patron use and cost
> of
> > our system.  Has any public library used this statistic for this
> > purpose and if so what variables did you use to accurately depict the
> > cost of the transaction?  We have a count of all of our reference
> > transactions but I do not know what monetary values to use; staff
> > salary, reference materials budget, total budget etc.  I have been
> > researching this for awhile now and have not had much luck.  Any help
> > you can provide me would be appreciated. Thank You,
> > 
> > Bill Lockhart
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Bill Lockhart
> > 
> > Head of Reference
> > 
> > El Paso Public Library
> > 
> > (915)543-5451
> > 
> > lockhartws at elpasotexas.gov<mailto:lockhartws at elpasotexas.gov>
> > --
> > George C. A. Bergstrom
> > Business Reference Librarian
> > Management & Economics Library
> > Purdue University
> > Lafayette, IN 47907
> > 
> > (765) 494 - 2918
> 
> 
> 
> 
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