This was a preconference presentation at the 2015 Charleston Conference by Jeff Bailey and Linda Creibaum, Arkansas State University.

2. • Questions are welcome at any time, but we do reserve the
option of deferring a question until later in the workshop
• Interactive discussions are welcome
• We will do some brainstorming later
• There are no bad ideas or wrong answers
• No critiquing of ideas or suggestions while brainstorming
• Ideas and suggestions will be grouped and sorted after
brainstorming
• There will be a break about halfway through

3. • In 1997 the Arkansas State University library had no
equitable means of making allocations
• One department accounted for nearly 20% of all collection
development expenditures
• Funds had not been reallocated/redistributed in many years
• There was no funding to support new programs

4. •We searched literature to discover methods of making
allocations, including the use of a formula (this was before
much of this type of information was available online)
•We chose to use a formula based on one used by Colorado
State University and described in SPEC Kit #36.

5. Do these steps before selecting
formula factors

6. •Doing this is much like a brainstorming session
• Cost of materials
• Degrees awarded per department or program
• Faculty per department or program
• Number of course sections offered
• Number of courses in catalog
• Number of degree programs
• Number of majors in each program
• Semester credit hour production (actual enrollment)
• Use of materials

7. •Evaluate and refine the list
• Eliminate duplicates and non-viable suggestions
• Identify the factors that are most relevant to your campus

8. •What we used
• Cost of materials (from the Library and Book Trade Almanac)
• Degrees awarded per department or program
• Faculty per department or program (FTE faculty)
• Number of course sections offered
• Number of courses in catalog
• Number of degree programs
• Number of majors in each program
• Semester credit hour production (actual enrollment)
• Use of materials

9. •Determine what data is available or could be gathered
• Both internal (within your library and within the field) and
external (campus, community, company, etc.)
• Eliminate possible factors for which data cannot be
obtained
•Gather samples of available data

10. These will not be easy
decisions!

11. •The original factors we used
• Semester credit hour production (actual enrollment)
• Number of classes offered
• Degrees awarded
• Faculty per department
• Cost of materials from Library and Book Trade Almanac
•Other factors that could have been used
• Number of degree programs
• Departmental external funding and/or research
productivity
• Use of materials
• Number of courses in catalog

12. •Weights
• The assigned weight values are inserted into the Excel
spreadsheet and are used in formula calculations
• Weighting is the assigning of values to indicate the
importance or impact of each factor in the formula relative
to the other formula factors

13. •Assigning weights to each factor
• These should be determined based upon each institution’s
priorities and culture
• Library Committee
• Faculty Senate
• Institutional Administration
• Someone or something else?
• We subdivided some factors before assigning weights
• We chose not to vary weights within a factor, but it can be
done
• Do test runs and adjust weights if needed

14. (by non-mathematicians)
HOW THE FORMULA WORKS

16. •You can do separate formula runs for…
• Books
• Journals
• Print
• Online resources (databases/ejournals/eBooks)
• Any other budgets your library may have
• Or any combination of these
•We chose to run a single formula for all allocations

17. •Before running the formula, determine how much of your
budget to allocate and how much to keep back for library
use (if any)
•You may choose to make adjustments to individual
allocations after running the formula
• Do no harm
• Nonparticipation
• Special entities or campus initiatives

18. •Your formula will probably need to be modified at some
point in the future
•We have changed our formula
• Weights were adjusted
• Added departmental external funding as a factor in 2012
• Removed this factor in 2015

19. •Document, document, document!
•Make the decisions and modify the formula to fit your
library’s needs
•Feel free to contact either of us with any questions you may
think of later

20. To download an interactive copy of the
demo spreadsheet
http://www.astate.edu/a/library/charleston

21. Linda Creibaum
Acquisitions Librarian
Dean B. Ellis Library
Arkansas State University
Jonesboro
P.O. Box 2040
State University, AR 72467
870-972-3354
lcreibaum@astate.edu
Jeff Bailey
Library Director
Dean B. Ellis Library
Arkansas State University
Jonesboro
P.O. Box 2040
State University, AR 72467
870-972-2724
jbailey@astate.edu

22. Thank you!!!