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ROI in German
Return on investment (ROI) in libraries
German libraries
The Berlin School of Library and Information
Science and the University Library at the 141
Humboldt University, Berlin – a case study Received May 2010
Revised June 2010
Kathrin Grzeschik Accepted June 2010
¨
Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin/Berlin School for Library and Information
Science, Berlin, Germany
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to verify the proposition by the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), that their return on investment (ROI) formula developed for academic
libraries and based on hard facts is broad enough to be used throughout the world for ROI studies in
academic institutions/libraries. It further aims to verify that UIUC’s methodology is adaptable enough
to work in other academic environments as well.
Design/methodology/approach – The methodology developed by UIUC (an ROI formula
developed for academic libraries based on grant proposal applications and citations) has been
“copied” and thereby adapted to enable it to be used in an academic environment in Europe/Germany.
Findings – The methodology developed by UIUC was adaptable enough to be used in a German
academic environment for calculating the ROI of a University library. However, the methodology was
sometimes complicated and therefore simplified for this and possible further studies. Likewise, the ROI
formula was very complex and this study found that it was possible to simplify it as well for further
use.
Research limitations/implications – There was difficulty in gathering all the information
necessary for conducting such a study in Germany as grant proposals contain sensitive data that
people are unwilling to display. Further, it was noticeable that German statistics on funding were
unable to provide the necessary data without further enquiries, despite the German law that public
institutions are obliged to disclose funding information.
Originality/value – Previously no one else has tried to verify the methodology for an ROI study
developed by UIUC. This study gives evidence that UIUC was right in claiming that their ROI formula
developed for academic institutions/libraries may be used for any academic library in the world.
Further, this study shows how the formula and the methodology may be adapted to fit individual
academic environments.
Keywords Return on investment, Libraries, Germany
Paper type Case study
Introduction
The following paper describes the experiment to implement the return on investment
(ROI) concept developed by the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) (see The Bottom Line: Managing Library
Kaufman, 2008a or Luther, 2008) for the field of LIS (Library and Information Science) Finances
Vol. 23 No. 4, 2010
¨
at the University Library of the Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin (HU)[1] and the Berlin pp. 141-201
School of Library and Information Science (IBI) (www.ibi.hu-berlin.de/). It investigates q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0888-045X
the principal ideas and methodology developed by UIUC and applies those in a German DOI 10.1108/08880451011104009

2. BL academic environment. One of the features Illinois claimed for their study, was the
23,4 chance for other institutions to use and copy the main steps.
Quantitative and qualitative measurements have been used in public, corporate and
academic libraries before, but this paper focuses on ROI as a quantitative method to
evaluate a library’s monetary value. The research question is: “Can the methodology
developed by UIUC be applied to German universities?” It is not the aim of this study to
142 come up with a true ROI figure for the IBI and the HU, but the testing and evaluation of
the UIUC method; nevertheless, all calculations aim to achieve as true of a possible
figure as can be determined.
The institutions that are part of this study are both well established in higher
education in Germany, The IBI is one of the two European members of the iCaucus[2].
Since the middle of the past decade, more and more grant proposals have been issued
by the IBI, which makes a study based on the ROI study of the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign feasible, as the core of the ROI study by UIUC are grant proposals.
The university library at the Humboldt University, Berlin (UB) was founded in 1831,
and currently has an inventory of 6.5 million media[3]. It sprawls over several section
libraries, but the collection for LIS is situated at the main library in the newly-built
Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm Zentrum in Berlin-Mitte.
Literature review
The “gain from investment” is not easily determined by libraries. The literature review
will demonstrate the lack and need of a continued investigation in ROI in academic
libraries in Germany, as well as the speciality of the concept developed by UIUC.
ROI is a financial metric performance measure to calculate what a certain
investment is worth. Very simply put, ROI is how much one gets back for what one has
put into something. “To calculate ROI, the benefit (return) of an investment is divided
by the cost of the investment; the result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio”[4].
A positive percentage or ratio indicates that more benefit than cost has been generated;
a negative percentage or ratio indicates less benefit was generated. In order to calculate
ROI, one needs to be able to quantify how much money was invested into something
and compare it with the loss or gain that is a result of handling the initial investment.
ROI is a well-used performance measure in fields such as human resources, marketing,
engineering, business studies, and training[5]. A problem libraries have to deal with is
`
that they are not capitalistic corporations, but exist to support their specific clientele
with information and technology. This is true for any library: the difficult part for a
ROI study in libraries is the assignment of monetary values for library services.
Among the uses of ROI in libraries, differences are discernible between the aims
addressed in studies:
Quantitative measurements for a special library’s ROI include time saved by library users
(. . .); the money users save by using the library instead of alternative sources; and revenue
generated with the assistance of the library (Strouse, 2003, para. 9).
Commonly-used methods to filter monetary values for non-profit organisations are:
.
“assessing time costs (replacement value of a client’s time)”; and
.
“the contingent valuation method” (Poll and Boekhorst, 2007, p. 36).

3. The ROI study by UIUC focused on revenue generated with the assistance of the ROI in German
library in question. libraries
The first method is valuable when average salaries of users are known, as it
calculates time costs with the help of average salaries. These measures may then
translate into actual dollar savings; nonetheless, the method is not feasible in an
academic surrounding, as most users of academic libraries are students who do not
earn a regular salary. 143
The second method, contingent valuation (CV), is a technique that assigns economic
value to non-market resources with the help of surveys. It has been around a while, but
was quite controversial until it gained a better reputation when scientists discussed the
method at a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Panel in 1993.
They found it meaningful when a set of rules was followed[6]:
[. . .] [B]y means of carefully designed surveys it is possible to elicit, in quantitative terms,
how much people value a particular organisation or service (British Library, 2004, p. 4).
Other publications followed, for example Mitchell and Carson (1993) claimed to
provide:
[. . .] decision makers, policy analysts, and social scientists with a detailed discussion of a [. . .]
technique for the valuation of goods not traded in private markets. [. . .] the technique draws
upon economic theory and the methods of surveys to elicit directly from consumers the the
values they place upon public goods (Mitchell and Carson, 2000, p. xv).
These surveys ask participants how much they would be prepared to pay (WTP –
willingness to pay), and how much they would be willing to accept for loss of quality of
life (WTA – willingness to accept). Since this panel, the method has been used in
cost-benefit analysis concerning the environment as Arrow et al. (1993) did, in real
estate, and lately libraries have adopted this method as well.
As people (users and potential users) receive indirect (and direct) benefits from
libraries, CV is a valuable method to use in the library environment:
Applied in a library/information context the methodology enables consideration to be given
to the cost implications of having and of not having a library service. The direct economic
contribution of the library to their users is calculated including investment in terms of time
and travel (Missingham, 2005, p. 146).
Libraries employing CV as a method assign financial value to intangible products. The
most famous CV study performed in the area of library and information science is the
British Library study from 2004[7]. The surveys used in the British Library CV study
asked questions such as “how much beneficiaries would be willing to pay for the
library’s continued existence” and “how much they would invest in terms of time and
money to make use of the library” (British Library, 2004, p. 4). After evaluating the
surveys, the research organisations found that “[f]or every £1 of public funding the
British Library receives annually, £4.40 is generated for the UK economy“ (British
Library, 2004, p. 5).
It is difficult, however, to establish objective economic value based on surveys that
ask people for estimations. Even the British Library (2004) indicates in its summary
that this method is seen as one of the most appropriate available, but it is still not an
exact science. UIUC set their goals to find a more tangible ROI method that could be
summarised in a formula adaptive enough to be used by other academic libraries and

4. BL institutions. Apart from that, the UIUC-study is the first ROI study based in an
23,4 academic setting. The British Library is a national library and their study was not set
in such an environment; therefore, it is less adaptable to be used in an academic setting.
The interest in ROI and performance measurement in general has generated huge
interest in the past decade. Missingham (2005) spoke about a third wave of ROI studies.
Demonstrating that libraries are worth their expenditures is not a new topic for
144 librarians. Librarians are no longer secure in their assumptions that the impact of a
library will be recognised by the communities served, or the authorities that fund them.
“As librarians we naturally tend to think our libraries and our services are invaluable.”
(The Krafty Librarian, 2008, para. 1). But it is rather the opposite that is believed by
academic as well as public communities and their funding bodies.
One of the major reasons for the strengthened demand for value is the paradigm
shift of media processed and stored in libraries. The shift has been induced by the
massive changes in technology development in the past two decades. Libraries have
been very adaptive, and included each new technology as it came along, but critics
have often voiced to librarians the familiar question: “Why do we need libraries when
everything is on the internet now.” It is common knowledge among library staff that
technology is altering the way information is created and thereby technology is
creating new ways of how information is distributed; nevertheless, this information
needs to be prepared and made available the same way printed information has been.
What has changed is the perception of the public and of funding bodies, “libraries
cannot take for granted, if they ever could, that they have a monopoly over the
provision of information” (Payne and Conyers, 2005, p. 1). This shift in thinking as well
as economic problems have lead to an accumulation of calls from funding bodies for
proofs of value. Aabø (2009) conducted a meta-analysis on what she calls the
“subgroup of library valuation that returns a return on investment or a cost-benefit
ratio”:
Public libraries [. . .] need to prove how the taxpayers’ money is used to benefit both the
individual citizens and the local communities. Academic libraries, school libraries, and
special libraries in different businesses meet similar types of demands, being asked for
performance measurement, cost justifications, and return on investment from the
administration of their university, school, or enterprise. These demands have been
strengthening due to increasing economic pressure (Aabø, 2009, p. 312).
Aabø emphasised that, owing to the financial crisis, the need for library valuation
grows stronger.
Libraries in the private as well as the public sector have a slightly longer tradition in
proving their value with the help of ROI, compared to academic libraries. Although
collecting, analysing, and presenting quantitative and qualitative data has been part of
a library’s pursuits for a longer period of time, only in the past few years it has shifted
from “simple questionnaires to complex surveys, and from simple economic
cost/benefit assessments to complex economic algorithms and forecasts” (Imholz
and Weil Arns, 2008, p. 5). Only recently have German libraries realised that
performance measurement is not only an internal task but an external one: “[. . .] das
¨r
Bewusstsein fehlte, wofu Bibliotheken und Bibliothekar/innen eigentlich da waren
¨ ¨
und wie sie die Unterstutzung der Offentlichkeit [. . .], gewinnen und behalten konnen,¨
¨
[. . .] heute erst hat sich das geandert!” (Busch, 2004, p. 13)[8].

5. In the 1990s Holt et al. (1996) researched into frameworks for evaluating public ROI in German
investment in public libraries. They emphasised that “economic impact occurs only libraries
when a business’s or institution’s activities bring outside clients to the region, thereby
bringing new dollars into the region, or when an institution attracts fiscal support from
outside the region for its activities”. (Holt et al., 1996, p. 3). They strengthened the
notion that libraries are among those institutions that are able to have economic
impact. A 2004 ROI study by the State Library and Archives of Florida showed “that 145
when Florida’s state and local governments invest in libraries, it enhances the quality
of life in communities and helps build a stronger state economy” (Griffith, 2004,
Overview). Academic libraries supporting academic institutions that bring new
dollars, or in this case Euro, into their institutional region, have the chance to have
similar economic and qualitative impact as described above by Holt et al. and Griffith.
Public libraries have been especially creative in finding solutions to raise awareness
for ROI regarding their library. Aabø found that “of the 38 studies [evaluated in her
meta-analysis], 32 are of public libraries” (Aabø, 2009, p. 311). Browsing the web pages
of public libraries showed many Anglo-American ones creating their own ROI
calculators. An example is the Library of Michigan ROI calculator[9] that enables tax
payers to calculate their own ROI when using the library[10]. Further discoveries were
public libraries doing surveys, listing their studies’ results or uploading videos on
YouTube[11].
ROI calculators by public libraries help customers to get an insight into their ROI on
tax money spent when using a library; academic libraries need to focus on the ROI for
their funding bodies. Poll and Payne (2006) demonstrated a variety of purposes and
methods used, again mostly by public libraries. They distinguished among others
between the “correlation of library use and academic or professional success [. . .]
impact on information literacy, the importance of the local library on research [. . .]
social impact [. . .] [and] the financial value of libraries” (Poll and Payne, 2006, p. 6).
Two of their findings are particularly important for this study: first, they emphasised
that measuring the financial value of libraries is the most interesting to funding
institutions. Despite the social importance of libraries and their impact on information
literacy, what counts for funding bodies is the money made. There is evidence for this
theory even in Germany. German universities and their libraries are recognized more
and more for the monetary value they bring their communities. For example, the
German Exzellenzinitiative[12] considers third-party funds in their benchmark of
participating universities; naturally, that makes German universities interested in the
monetary surplus or deficit their libraries are producing. Second, Poll and Payne (2006)
mentioned two studies that show that the impact of local libraries on research has
successfully been measured with the help of citations analysis. Both studies evaluated
“what percentage of the material cited was (or could have been) retrieved via the local
library” (Poll and Payne, 2006, p. 7). Additionally, they conducted surveys to support
their assumptions. The study at UIUC started in a similar way, but went a step further
and added real economic value to citations by calculating ROI with the help of citation
analysis in grand proposals.
There have been studies on performance measurement in Germany as well, but very
few in the academic sector and even fewer considering ROI as a method. In 2003 a
similar tendency was seen in the Anglo-American academic field of LIS:

6. BL Precious little attention is currently given to development and collection of ROI data. Among
the three primary types of special libraries (corporate, academic, government), corporate
23,4 libraries are most likely to study their value impact, and academic libraries are least likely
(Strouse, 2003, para. 3).
Later international outcome-studies such as “Worth Their Weight” conducted by
Imholz and Weil Arns (2008) showed that opinions and trends, at least among the
146 public library sector in continental America, have changed. This development gives
hope for a new trend in Europe. Imholz and Weil Arns presented seventeen
US-American studies by public libraries punctuating current approaches and methods
used by contemporary scholars and researchers. Nevertheless, two years earlier Blanck
(2006) surveying performance measurements in (mainly public) libraries in Germany
was correct to claim that “Im deutschen Bibliotheks- und Informationsbereich findet
hierzu bisher so gut wie keine Diskussion statt.” (Blanck, 2006, p.13)[13].
One exception in the growing field of evaluations of public library ROI studies (see
Missingham, 2005; Blanck, 2006; Imholz and Weil Arns, 2008; Aabø, 2009) is Blanck’s
predecessor Fett (2004), who collected literature on performance measurement in
academic libraries. He devoted a short chapter to the topic of ROI and lists only the
Value-Added Library Methodology (V þ LM) by Ruth MacEachern. This methodology
is based on CV and results from “eine Ermittlung von Schatten- oder Quasipreisen
durch Erhebungen bei den Nutzern“ (Fett, 2004, p. 42)[14]; additionally, replacement
costs are calculated. As previously mentioned, the problem of CV and V þ LM are the
often very subjective monetary values assigned to library services that are then used
as hard facts.
Designing an ROI measurement based on hard facts and figures is a sensible task
for the German field of academic libraries. UIUC’s study provides a new way to
calculate ROI for libraries based on hard facts instead of assumptions (see for example
the British Library study). UIUC, however, had to gather certain figures with the help
of surveys. These minor approximations are amended in this study due to its smaller
scale and the possibility to count and individually evaluate citations.
The making of the UIUC return on investment study
In 2007, researchers of the Library at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
together with Judy Luther, president of Informed Strategies at Elsevier and Dr Carol
Tenopir, Professor at the University of Tennesee at Knoxville, conducted the ROI
study that is the basis for this study. The starting point of their study was the common
perception that academic libraries are in need of a tool that is easy to use for answering
the demands for accountability from funding institutions. The research group aimed at
having numbers rather than figurative values for proving what their university library
gives back to their funding institutions, “[. . .] it is important to demonstrate that
investment in the library yields a ‘return’ that contributes to the strategic goals of the
institution” (Kaufman, 2008a, p. 29). Their aim was to find a formula that would
answer the question “for every dollar invested by the University in the library, the
University received x dollars in return” (Kaufman, 2008a, p. 30). The ground-breaking
approach was that they did not plan to develop a model based on predictions as is the
case with the CV method, but they planned to base the formula on real figures. In order
to have real figures, they were in need to find a connection between the library and

7. strategic concerns of the university that could be expressed in quantifiable terms. ROI in German
Their goals were to: libraries
[. . .] demonstrate that the library and its research collections contribute to [essential]
income-generating activities [. . .], quantify the return on the University’s investment in its
library, highlight the library’s role in the extra-mural funding process on campus [and to]
demonstrate correlation between the library and grant activities, rather than attempt to prove
cause and effect (Kaufman, 2008a, p. 30). 147
Roger Strouse’s (2003) approach for a ROI-study in corporate libraries was the
approach chosen by UIUC for the development of a generic model that is not predictive
and works in the academic environment. Strouse developed a formula that determines
value based on “revenue generated with the assistance of the library [. . .] [and] the
importance of information provided by the library that the user would not have found
or had access to without the library’s intermediation” (Strouse, 2003, para. 8).
His formula (adapted by Judith Luther (Kaufman, 2008a, Slide 7)) was to multiply
the percentage of respondents generating revenue with library’s support by the
percentage of instances when the library was used and thereby revenue generated.
This was multiplied by the median revenue generated in US dollars. This would leave
a certain amount of US dollars generated per library use (Kaufman, 2008b, p. 430). This
Corporate Library Model by Roger Strouse (adapted by Judith Luther) is shown below:
xx% of respondents report generating revenue w= library’s support
£ xx% of instances when library was used £ $xx median revenue generated
¼ $xx average revenue generated per library use
The research team in Illinois decided that grant proposals are revenue generating
incomes in an academic setting that are created with the help of library resources. In
order to confirm that assumption, Illinois distributed an online survey among 2,000
members of their faculty. The survey elicited how users perceived the library and its
resources when constructing grant proposals. “Almost 75% of respondents stated that
more than three-quarters of the citations they included in their grant applications were
accessed through the library” (Kaufman, 2008a, p. 31). After evaluating the survey
results, calculating the ROI for Illinois’ university library based on the use of citations
in successful grant proposals was confirmed as a reasonable method.
Calculating the ROI with the total library budget, the researchers determined a ROI
of $4.38 for every dollar invested in the library, for the fiscal year 2006 (Kaufman,
2008a). This result is based on surveys, i.e. evaluating “percentages of staff using
citations in their grant proposals” and budgets provided i.e. “the actual size of grants
awarded ” by the finance department (see Table I).
The ROI was calculated by dividing the proportion of grant income in US dollar
using library materials by the total library budget (see Table I, E). The researchers at
UIUC decided to use the total library budget instead of for example the materials
budget or a subset of the budget (i.e. electronic resources), because staff and support
costs are also part of acquiring materials that are used for citations. Nevertheless, to
show the difference, they calculated the ROI with the materials budget of UIUC library
and it resulted in a ROI of approximately $12. It is important to note that:

8. BL
No. tenure system faculty 2,045
23,4 No. principal investigators 1,700 *Survey Q11-94% faculty use citations in
grant proposals
A ¼ % faculty using citations in grant 78.14 (1,700 £ 94%)/2,045
proposals *
No. grant proposals 2,897 * *Survey Q12-94% proposals include
148 citations that are obtained via campus
network/Library Gateway
No. grant awards 1,456 * *Survey Q10-95% faculty state
citations important or essential in grant
awards
B ¼ % proposals inc. citations obtained 50.79 (1,456 £ 95%)/(2,897) £ 94%)
through library
$ Average size grant 63,293
C ¼ $ proportion of grant $ secured using 25,369 (78.14% £ 50.79% £ $63,923)
library materials
No. grants (expended) in year 6,232
D ¼ $ proportion of grant income using $158,099,608 ($25; 369 £ 6; 232)
library materials
$ Total library budget $36,102,613
E ¼ University return in grant $ on $4.38 ($158,099,608/$36,102,613)
library
Table I.
UIUC ROI calculations Source: Kaufman (2008a)
[. . .] [f]aculty survey results factor into the equation in three separate places. In this way, the
model does not assume that all grant proposals use references, it does not assume that that all
references come from the library, and it does not assume that citations are deemed critical to
all grant proposals (Kaufman, 2008b, p. 433).
The differing amounts of citations per grant proposals in this study show, that UIUC
was right in assuming the above, but the model designed by UIUC is a feasible version
of including revenue generating actions supported by the library (citations in grant
proposals (see Appendix 1)) into a ROI calculation for academic libraries.
Designing an ROI study for the Berlin School of Library and Information
Science
When initially planning to adopt the University of Illinois ROI study for a German
setting, a study larger in scale and more similar to the Illinois ROI study was intended.
¨
It was planned to conduct the study for the Niedersachsische Staats- und
¨ ¨
Universitatsbibliothek Gottingen[15] and its partner the Georg-August-Universitat ¨
¨
Gottingen[16]. These institutions were possible candidates for a German ROI study,
because they represent a major research university and library. They are major players
in receiving grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)[17] as well as
¨
the Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)[18]. What the author did
not consider was the sensitive nature of data grant proposals contain; collecting the
necessary data was an impossible hurdle. In addition, the data that were available in
the end for running a ROI study comparable to the one developed by UIUC have
incompatible categories that cannot readily be disentangled in the time available. The
problems and their possible consequences will be noted in the sections below.

9. To narrow down the scope and receive usable material, the author chose to examine ROI in German
the Berlin School of Library and Information Science (IBI) and the Library and libraries
Information Science section at the university library. The Berlin School for Library and
Information Science is the only LIS-research-orientated academic institution in
Germany that actively participates in current state-of-the-art research. In past years,
the IBI has actively participated in grant proposals applied for in cooperation with
other major research universities, as well as applying on its own. Researching the 149
activities of other LIS-orientated academic institutions with the help of the DFG search
engine GEPRIS[19] showed no results. Neither of the major Universities of Applied
Science[20] had any projects listed in the field of LIS that were funded by the DFG in
the past five years.
By choosing a smaller institution than the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
and its library for this study, the author had to adjust the longitudinal scope. In order
to have a substantial enough amount of grant proposals, it was extended to three
consecutive years (2006-2009).
In total, 13 grant proposals applied for by the IBI and partners have been awarded
with grants in those three years. The total budget of these conglomerates was
e3,190,502.72 (see Appendix 2 Grants Calculations). This budget is a composite
number compiled with the help of budgets forecast in the grant proposals. An
approximate number had to be established because official budget listings for
third-party funds vary a lot, and unfortunately the listings by the HU[21] are not
sufficient for this study. The above figure has been composed of average wage costs
(salary and fringe benefits) as well as travel costs, print and publishing costs, plus
miscellaneous costs listed in the grant proposals.
The average salary and fringe benefit costs were calculated on the basis of a
persona[22] being just under 30 years of age and being paid on BAT IIa level 1[23].
BAT IIa is a standard level for a scholarly member of staff working on a research
project at the HU. The age plays an important part, as BAT scales income based on
maturity. For example, a 26-year-old person would earn a gross income of e2,293.30 per
month plus residence allowance and further allowances based on marital status and
children. A person having the same conditions but being 30 years of age would earn a
gross income of e2,523.37 per month plus allowances simply because of being four
years older. The basic idea was that people being older have had more experience and
are therefore better qualified. This way of calculating easy changed from April 2010
¨ ¨
with a new collective wge agreement called TV-L (Tarfivertrag fur den offentlichen
¨
Dienst der Lander)[24], but the average salary and fringe benefits will not change
significantly because of those changes.
The salary and fringe benefits are not the amount such research project employees
receive in their paychecks, but the amount of money the institution actually spends on
them. In Germany, institutions support their employees by paying proportions for
certain benefits such as health insurance, pension, unemployment insurance, and
sometimes accident en route. These proportions are paid directly to the respective
organisation responsible for the benefit or the state. For the above-described persona
(just under 30 years of age, level 1 BAT IIa) it amounts to e3,492 per month. This
amount correlates with expenditures for one person-month. Person-month is a measure
of work effort, for example if a project will take three months to finish with three people

10. BL working full time on it, the project requires 3*3 ¼ 9 person-month effort. That would
23,4 imply e31,428 in salary and fringe benefits costs at the HU for such a project.
As mentioned above, UIUC conducted a survey. They found out that 94 percent of
proposals include citations that are obtained via a campus network or library gateway.
This survey, however, is the weakest part of the UIUC ROI study. A response rate of 16
percent is not seen as low, but a higher response rate would have been better, because
150 UIUC based their percentage of proposals including citations obtained through the
library on the survey results. Certain factors determine the statistical confidence of
surveys, these factors are for example the size of the population or the degree of
variance in responses from the population. All the same, Bennekom (2002) states there
is no average response rate, and UIUC had Dr Bruce Kingma of Syracuse University
consulting their research methodology. Due to the smaller scale of this study, a survey
was not deemed necessary. It was possible to evaluate the citations individually to
retrieve a more accurate proportion of grants in Euro secured by using library
materials; the number was acquired by calculating the (%) proportion of citations
obtainable through the library.
The starting-point was to find and investigate each citation in the successful grant
proposal. All references made to a published or unpublished source, including
websites, were identified as citations and either found as footnote, link in the full-text,
or traditionally in the bibliography. References in German grant proposals are usually
added in the section “Ausgangslage/Eigene Vorarbeit”[25], but the variety of proposals
for the differing funding bodies showed that simply searching through this section was
not enough; each proposal was searched from top to bottom. For the established
references the focus was the availability either through the Online Public Access
Catalogue (OPAC) or the digital library accessible via Virtual Private Network (VPN).
The OPAC of the UB is connected with the Kooperativer Bibliotheksverbund
Berlin-Brandenburg (KOBV)[26]. Loan sharing is one of the features KOBV (n.d.)
facilitates among its participants, and any citations available via loan sharing were
therefore counted as belonging to the UB.
In the 13 grant proposals, 474 individual citations are discernible. Individual means
that some proposals cited the same source twice, for example as a proper citation in the
references list and as a link in the full-text; in this case, the citation was counted as one
only. For 190 citations, its source could be traced back via the materials provided by
the UB. This means either the source being a physical or electronic item at the UB, or
the source being obtainable via loan sharing and thereby listed in the OPAC. 284
citations were purely internet-related sources; quite a few of those were websites
created by other projects led by HU members and/or institutions.
The number of citations per proposal varied a lot as well. Some projects had a very
low number of citations, others comparatively very high numbers (see Appendix 3
Citations). The project LuKII (LOCKSS-und-KOPAL-Infrastruktur-und-Interoperabilitat) ¨
with the lowest amount of citations cites only seven sources, whereas the project
Distributed Open Access Reference Citation Services (DOARC) cites 103. Grand
proposals applied for at the DFG are supposed to cite or add literature references, but
“Der Antrag sollte nicht mehr als 20 Seiten umfassen und aus sich heraus, auch ohne
¨re
Lektu der zitierten oder beigefu ¨gten Literatur, verstandlich sein”[27]. Therefore the
¨
amount of citations seem to be individually determinable. Owing to the survey results
gathered by UIUC, citations in grant proposals were assessed as valuable

11. measurement for revenue generated by the respective library. This assumption is ROI in German
based on perceptions by the tenure system faculty. The question is if this is true for libraries
German grant proposals as well. The vastly differing amount of citations per
successful grant proposal for the IBI suggests that citations might not carry such an
importance for success or failure in Germany. Comparing the two studies in this matter
is impossible, however, as UIUC did not count the individual citations and no survey
was conducted for this study. Hence for this study, UIUC’s assumption of value for 151
citations in grant proposals is taken as fact.
Some of the internet-based sources cited in the grant proposals link to projects by
the HU, those that are very closely linked to the IBI and which sources are found via the
UB catalogue have been counted as belonging to the UB (i.e. DINI – Deutsche Initiative
¨
fur Netzwerkinformation e.V)[28]. Those that are linked to the HU by being a project
but whose sources are not (yet) obtainable via the library are counted as internet-based
sources.
Some grant proposals cite internet-based sources more often than once; for example
¨
IUWIS lists press releases by “Borsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels” in its
references list as well as in its footnotes. Sources listed twice were counted once only,
but sources linking to differing locations on one website were counted twice. The
percentage of citations obtainable via the university library were calculated according
to above descriptions. This adds up to 40.08 percent citations that are obtainable
through the UB (see Table II).
As briefly mentioned above, calculating the percentage of citations obtainable via the
library by counting and evaluating the citations single-handedly is a different way of
utilising the results as UIUC purported. With the help of data gathered with the survey
among tenure system faculty, UIUC determined what percentage of faculty is using
citations in grant proposals. Afterwards, they established the percentage of proposals
including citations obtained through the library, by multiplying the grants awarded with
the percentage of faculty stating that citations are important or essential in their grants
awards. This figure was then divided through the grant proposals made multiplied with
the percentage of proposals, including citations that are obtained via the library (see
Table I, UIUC ROI calculations). As said before, by counting and evaluating the citations
individually, the established figures are more accurate and allow a more precise
calculation of the ROI. One has to keep in mind, however, that UIUC would have to
evaluate the citations of 1,456 successful grant proposals for 2006 alone. Given the
differences in scope, other institutions working with the UIUC method need to analyse if
counting and evaluating costs more or less time and effort than executing a major survey.
The grant proposals evaluated
Between 2006 and 2009, 13 grant proposals applied for by the IBI were successful and
had grants awarded by either DFG, BMBF, or the European Union (European
Total amount of citations 474 Table II.
Amount of citations obtained through UB 190 Citations obtained
Proportion of citations obtained through UB in all through UB (library) in
proposals (%) 40.08 (190/4.74) proposals (%)

12. BL Commision/i2010)[29]. (for more details, see the paragraphs on each grant proposal
23,4 below or Appendix 3 Citations). When looking at this appendix the comment “not
applicable” might catch someone’s eye, or the fact that there are more running numbers
listed than citations in the total count. Not all footnotes were counted as citations. If the
text provided in the footnote was additional information regarding the proposal but not
a link or reference, the information was not counted as citation.
152 As said before, the third-party funds statistics available at the HU website are not
sufficient for the purpose of this study; the HU statistics do not segment third-party
funds into individual years per institute for more than the last accounting year
(currently 2008). The funds expended are split between the institutions receiving
grants, but the previous years are summarised as third-party funds expenditures for
the entire HU. This fashion of listing funds forced individual calculations for each
proposal to be made.
The budget calculations themselves proved to be challenging. For example, the
travel budget intended for DOARC was split up between the three participating
institutions. This information posed the question of how detailed the calculations were
going to be. If only the travel costs allotted to the HU were calculated, the costs for
travel, publishing, and miscellaneous costs would minimize to e13,932.72 instead of
e23,132.72 in total. Initially this way seemed to be the right way to go, as this study is
concentrating on the IBI and the UB. Further considerations, however, indicated
splitting up travel costs like that would imply splitting up the other costs as well. This
in turn would demand a level of interrogation of applicant bodies that is not possible.
In addition, it is not traceable which partner added which citation to the grant proposal.
If the costs would be split up between the participating institutions, the citations would
have to be split up too. This approach is too highly structured and not feasible simply
because of applicants not remembering their citations. Under US practice, it is quite
possible that grant money for one institution is also used to fund travel for people at
other universities. Trying to tease out the amounts for other partners is not necessarily
improving the comparability of data. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that
this is a ROI study for the IBI and not for the other institutions, as the ROI is calculated
on the basis of citations obtainable via the UB and the materials budget for the UB.
The budgets of grant proposals applied for on a European level posed another
problem. Total budgets for European projects amount to millions; for example,
EuropeanaConnect has a budget of e4,798,149 (without own contribution)[30] of which
the HU receives only e191,986 (without own contribution). If this study were to use the
total budgets allocated for European projects, as done for the DFG or BMBF funded
projects, the final ROI figure would be distorted immensely and thus lead to serious
misrepresentations. Additionally, the amount of e191,986 allocated to the IBI for
EuropeanaConnect as well as the budgets of the other two European-based projects,
correspond with the budgets calculated for the non-European projects. Although this
study does not aim at calculating a precise ROI number for the IBI and UB, but at
reconstructing the UIUC study in a German academic setting, the figures should be as
close as possible to reality and provide an approximate result in the end. Hence, for all
European-based grant proposals only the budgets (without own contribution) allocated
to the IBI were used for calculating the total budget.

13. IUWIS ROI in German
¨
Infrastruktur Urheberrecht fur Wissenschaft und Bildung (IUWIS)[31] is a two-year
project applied for by Professor Michael Seadle from the IBI and Professor Rainer
libraries
¨
Kuhlen from the University in Constance (Universitat Konstanz)[32]. It is based at the
IBI and funded by DFG.
IUWIS has calculated to need 60 person-month on BAT IIa level or equivalent,
creating a salary and fringe benefit budget of e209,520. Additionally e46,464 are 153
needed for four student assistants each working 40/h per month for both years. Costs
for printing, travel, as well as miscellaneous costs are summed up to e55,515; totalling
the grants awarded for IUWIS to e311,500.
The proposal has 28 citations for sources found at the UB and 36 purely
internet-based ones, summing up to 64 citations in total. Some citations appear twice,
once in the footnotes and once in the references; depending on their source they are
¨ ¨
counted once or twice. For example, the Gottinger Erklarung[33] is listed as an
internet-based source, as well as a source obtainable through the library because the
¨
references in the grant proposal point to differing sources established by the Gottinger
¨
Erklarung.
LuKII
¨
LOCKSS-und-KOPAL-Infrastruktur-und-Interoperabilitat (LuKII) is one of the newest
projects currently pursued by the IBI. Its topic is the ongoing problem of long-term
digital archiving. Applicants are Professor Michael Seadle (IBI), Professor Peter
Schirmbacher (IBI/CMS[34]) and Dr Elisabeth Niggemann (DNB).
LuKII was planned to run for two years and calculated to need 57 person-month on
BAT IIa level or equivalent as well as one student assistant working 80/h month for
both years. The average salary and fringe benefits can be estimated at e222,276.
Additional costs such as scholarly equipment, travel expenses, and publishing costs
are calculated at e58,450; totalling the probable budget to e280,726.
Altogether, LuKII has only seven citations in total. Four citations are for sources
obtainable through the UB and three are internet-based sources. This is speculative,
but maybe because the websites for LOCKSS[35] and kopal[36] provide excellent
information on each project and further references are not needed. In addition, LuKII
operates on a new level of digital archiving and relevant sources may not be available
yet.
EuropeanaConnect
EuropeanaConnect[37] is a project funded by the European Union working in close
context with the major European library project Europeana[38]. The applicant at the
IBI is Professor Stefan Gradmann; he is one of 31 pan-European applicants.
EuropeanaConnect asks for a total budget of e4,798,149 as contribution from the
European Commission. Of this large amount a mere e191,986 (4%) accrue to the IBI. It
is important to note that European projects are always funded only partly by the
European Commission, as much as up to half of the funding may come from within the
participating institutions. In the case of EuropeanaConnect only 25 percent (e1,199,538)
have to be contributed by the participating institutions. To incorporate these
differences for this study is unnecessary for the final ROI calculations; for each
European-funded project the grants awarded without own contribution are used.

14. BL EuropeanaConnect has 26 citations; only one is from a source obtainable by the UB.
23,4 All other citations are links to European websites. This grant proposal differs from
most of the others as it did not contain a separate reference list or high amount of
footnotes, but links in the running text.
Galateas
154 Generalized Analysis for Logs for Automatic Translation and Episodic Analysis of
Searches (Galateas)[39] is a project with eight participants all based in Europe; the
applicant at the IBI is Professor Vivien Petras.
The total budget allotted for Galateas is e3,700,000 (without own contributions).
The European contribution is e1,850,000 of which the IBI receives e62,356. This is the
total budget for one research staff member and a student assistant working for two
years, including travel costs.
Altogether, the grant proposal for Galateas holds 31 citations of which 19 sources
are obtainable via the UB and twelve are internet-based ones. Among the
internet-based ones are two journals that have earlier issues available at the UB, but
it was not clear if the needed issue is available as well; therefore, these were ascribed to
the internet-based citations as they were available online.
DOARC
Distributed Open Access Reference Citation Services (DOARC)[40] is a project of the
IBI, the Institute for Chemistry at the HU, the Carl von Ossietzky University in
Oldenburg, and the Institute for Science Networking in Oldenburg. The applicants are
Professor Peter Schirmbacher (IBI/CMS), Dr Frank Havemann (IBI), Dr Wolfgang
Christen (HU), Professor Volker Mellert (Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg),
and Professor Eberhard R. Hilf (Institute for Science Networking).
Not surprisingly, considering the topic, DOARC is the grant proposal with most
citations. DOARC has 103 citations of which 39 are obtainable via the UB databases or
OPAC, 64 citations are internet-based ones. A couple of the internet-based citations link
to open access publications by the applicants, as for example Havemann (2004)
“Eprints in der wissenschaftlichen Kommunikation.” One of the citations that were
counted as being obtainable via the UB is not explicitly allocable. DOARC’s citation
No. 51 (see Appendix 3 Citations is a publication by S. Katz in Science and Public
Policy from 2006. The publication was not traceable at the HU for this specific year but
for the year 2000; nor did the authors’ website provide the publication from 2006. As
the source from 2000 was at ACM and the double non-appearance of the later
publication might indicate a typing mistake by the applicants, the citation was counted
for the UB.
The total third-party funds allocated for DOARC sum up to e183,692,72; e160,560
are for staffing costs and e23,132.72 for travel, publishing, and miscellaneous costs.
EERQI
European Educational Research Quality Indicators (EERQI)[41] is a European research
project in the 7t77h Framework Programme for Research in the Socio-economic
Sciences and Humanities Theme (SSH)[41]. The applicant at the IBI is Professor Stefan
Gradman.

15. Altogether, nineteen European institutions are participating in this project, the total ROI in German
amount of grants awarded are e1,494,624. The Berlin School for Library and libraries
Information Science receives e136,720. As with the other European projects this project
is only partly funded by the European Commission, the total budget is e2,226,323.08
and 67,13 per cent are funded. The amount left needs to be contributed by the
participating institutions.
The grant proposal contains 43 citations; 20 refer to sources obtainable by the UB 155
and 23 are purely internet-based. Like the grant proposal EuropeanaConnect, the grant
proposal for EERQI contains many references as links in the full-text. No peculiarities
were discernible for citations in the grant proposal for EERQI.
Forschungsdiversitat ¨
¨
The full title for this project is “Messung der Diversitat der Forschung”[42], applicants
¨ ¨
are Dr Jochen Glaser (Freie Universitat Berlin)[43], Michael Heinz (IBI), and Dr Frank
Havemann (IBI). This project aims at creating methods for measuring the diversity of
research in various special subject areas and their respective organisations.
¨
The total budget for Forschungsdiversitat is e230,013. This is split up in e103,645
for staff, consisting of e88,621 for 18 person-month on BAT IIa level or equivalent plus
e17,424 for other staffing costs not further specified. e126,338 are allocated for travel,
scholarly equipment, publishing, and other costs. The staff budget for this project was
not calculated with the help of the persona developed for this study, but taken from the
budget listing provided by the grant proposal. In contrast to grant proposals applied
for at DFG that list the person-month only, grant proposals applied for at BMBF have
to calculate the person-month and the costs connected. Eighteen person-month
multiplied with the e3,492 used as median for salary and fringe benefits throughout
this study sum up to e62,856. This is e25,765 less than the budget for staff costs
¨
calculated throughout this study. Forschungsdiversitat has therefore calculated their
budget with an older person in mind. As this study does not aim to provide an exact
ROI result, these differences are not important. For a concrete ROI figure, further
information such as what age the actual person working in a position has, as well as
the marital status and place of residence would be necessary; however, this kind of
information is deemed to be too private in Germany.
¨
The citation count for Forschungsdiversitat is 48 in total; 41 are citations obtainable
via the UB. This is the grant proposal with the largest amount of citations obtainable
via the UB, the runner up is DOARC with 39 citations obtainable via the UB. Only
seven citations are internet-based ones. None of the citations found were peculiar.
CARPET
The motivation for CARPET (Community for Academic Reviewing, Publishing and
Editorial Technology)[44] was the ongoing process of virtualisation of working
processes in the academic area. The applicants are Professor Peter Schirmbacher
¨
(IBI/CMS), Dr Norbert Lossau (SUB Gottingen), and Dr Laurent Romary (Max Planck
Digital Library, Berlin)[45].
CARPET (n.d.) was planned for two years and calculated to need 72 person-month
or three members of research staff for two years. Additionally three student assistants
each working 80h/month for two years were estimated, the budget for staff costs is
e321,120. Additional e27,820 for travel and publishing raised the total budget to

16. BL e348,940. This is the highest budget for a DFG-funded project the IBI is involved in, the
23,4 runner-up is IUWIS with e1,441 less.
Twenty-six is the total count of citations made in the grant proposal for CARPET,
with a very high amount of internet-based sources (20) and a small amount of
library-obtainable sources (five). Four internet-based resources (DRIVER, eSciDoc,
Berlin Declaration, Budapest Open Access Initiative) point to projects the HU is
156 involved in.
Meta-Image
Art history is a visual-orientated subject and the digitalisation of scholarly life has
opened new possibilities for research in art history. Applicants are Dr Martin Wanke
¨ ¨ ¨ ¨
(Leuphana Universitat Luneburg), Lisa Dieckmann (Universitat zu Koln)[46], and
Professor Peter Schirmbacher (IBI/CMS).
Meta-Image (n.d.) has a total budget of e271,520 composed of e209,520 for staff and
e62,000 for travel, publications, and miscellaneous costs. There is no budget for
scholarly equipment as these are goods on own account.
The citation count is relatively low, only 14 citations altogether. Nine are citations
for publications obtainable via the UB and five are internet-based ones. One of the
citations obtainable via the library is not clearly allocable, because it is microfiche
based at the UB until 1998 and then superseded by a link to the resources based in
Marburg (Bildarchiv Foto Marburg)[47]. The resources provided on Marburg’s
website, however, are freely accessible for everyone and do not have special access
rights. A test browsing the site with HU VPN and without it showed no differences in
presentation or access; therefore, the citation could have been listed as internet-based
source as well. I decided to list it as UB source as the microfiche is on-site at the main
library, the website is detectable via the OPAC, and the reference in the grant proposal
does not refer to a certain year.
MUNIN-RS
MUNIN-RS (Entwicklung und Implementierung einer Open-Source-Repository-Solution
¨
fur vernetztes Arbeiten mit wissenschaftlichen Bild- und Multimediasammlungen/
Modifiable Universal Image Network – Repository Solution) aims at developing and
implementing a kind of repository-based solution for picture and multimedia
collections. The applicant is Prof. Schirmbacher (IBI/CMS).
The total budget estimated for MUNIN-RS is e276,880. Next to e214,080 for staff,
the project calculates a very high amount of e53,000 for miscellaneous costs of which e
50,000 are intended for a service contract. A further e9,800 is budgeted for travel.
A relatively low amount of citations (12) is split in five citations obtainable via the
UB and seven purely internet-based ones. One of the internet-based sources is a
website by the HU (Medienportal)[48]; it is counted as an internet-based resource
because the Medienportal (n.d.) was not detectable via the OPAC or the digital library.
OAN
Open Access Netzwerk (OAN)[49] is the oldest grant proposal of the 13 analysed for
this study. Applied for in 2006 the project was funded for two years by DFG; starting
the assembly of a network of certified open access repositories. The applicants are

17. ¨ ¨
Professor Peter Schirmbacher (IBI/CMS), Dr Judith Plumer (University of Osnabruck)[50], ROI in German
¨
and Dr Norbert Lossau (SUB Gottingen).
Based on the calculations for the persona developed for this study, e202,464 are
libraries
budgeted for staff working 48 person-month on BAT IIa level as well as three student
assistants each working 40h/month for two years. In addition e38,700 are estimated for
scholarly equipment, travel expenses, and publications. The total amount calculated is
e241,164. 157
OAN is one of the grant proposals with a very high count of citations for
internet-based sources. Of the 39 counted 31 are internet-based and only eight
obtainable via the UB. All but one of the eight are online sources belonging to the UB
(i.e. DINI website or edoc-Server). All of these are detectable with the aid of the OPAC
and therefore counted as sources belonging to the UB. A high amount of internet-based
sources is not remarkable, considering the requirements related to open access that is
the key element of this grant proposal.
OAN2
OA-Netzwerk 2 (OAN2)[51] is the direct continuation of the OAN project. The grant
proposal for OAN2 was written in 2009 and continues where OAN terminated.
¨
Applicants are Professor Peter Schirmbacher (IBI/CMS), Dr Judith Plumer (University
¨ ¨
of Osnabruck) and Dr Norbert Lossau, (SUB Gottingen), in addition Professor Stefan
Gradmann (IBI) has joined the team.
The total budget for OAN2 is e86,858 more than assessed for the previous project
OAN; the sum totals are e328,022. e286,272 are calculated for staffing; 72
person-month on BAT IIa level or equivalent and 18 month for a student assistant
working 40/h a month. Further costs add up to e 41,750. OAN2 has the third highest
budget of all grant proposals.
Citations in the grant proposal for OAN2 add up to 17 citations only, of which 13 are
internet-based ones. Only four citations are obtainable via the UB; again, the citations
mirror the OA topic of the grant proposal. One of the internet-based sources links to the
Mathematics Subject Classification[52] which is available in print via loan sharing. The
print version is from 2000, however, and the link refers to an up-to-date version, the
citation was counted as internet-based resource and not as belonging to the UB.
Docupedia
Docupedia is a project by Professor Peter Schirmbacher (IBI/CMS), Professor Wilfried
Nippel (Institute for History at the Humboldt University)[53], and Professor Martin
¨
Zabrow (Zentrum fur Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam)[54]. It aims at creating a
subject-specific organised, dynamically-growing repository containing encyclopaedic
texts about contemporary history.
This project was planned to run for three years and funding was applied for two
years. The applicants calculated for 60 person-month on BAT IIa level or equivalent as
well as two student assistants each working 80/h per month for both years. The
average salary and fringe benefit costs can be estimated at e255,984. Additional costs
are calculated at e35,000 totalling the approximate budget to e290,984.
The proposal has 45 citations; only seven citations can be found with the help of the
UB and 38 citations are purely internet-based ones. Of the latter nine, links to websites
created by projects the IBI, CMS or HU are involved. Quite a few links direct to the

18. BL same page but at varying contents. For example arxiv.org[55] is counted twice because
23,4 one link in the grant proposal leads to the main page and the second link to the
information “How to replace an article in arxiv”[56]. Double references like those are
counted as two separate citations, because they do indicate two different destinations.
Determining the ROI
158 Usually determining the ROI is a simple mathematical, monetary calculation (see
equation below)[57], but as described before, UIUC had to conduct a survey and
evaluate certain data to fit into this kind of basic mathematical formula:
ðGain from investment 2 Cost of InvestmentÞ
ROI ¼
Cost of Investment
The term “gain from investment” sounds innocent, but as discussed in the literature
review of this study is rather difficult for libraries, because no direct monetary gain
from investment is discernible.
For both studies, investment in libraries is understood as the budget allocated to a
library. For UIUC the total library budget is $36,102,613. As visible in Table I, UIUC
did not as indicated in the formula above, subtract the “cost of investment” from the
“gain from investment” before dividing it. They simply divided the “total library
budget” from the “gain from investment.” In the UIUC study the gain from investment
is the proportion of grant income using library materials in US dollars. This
assumption is the basis for their study. Probably UIUC decided to change the basis
formula accordingly, because a library budget is not a real cost of investment for a
certain product. Without the library budget a library would not exist. In contrast to
almost 100 per cent of a library budget being provided by the federal state in
Germany[58],59 library budgets or higher education in general are not highly
state-subsidized in the USA:
Public support for higher education in the USA has declined over the past quarter century.
Nearly half of Illinois’ budget came from state funding in 1980; by 2008, that figure had
declined to less than 17% (Kaufman, 2008a, p. 29).
Nevertheless, the budget allocated is always the core of existence for a library and
again for both studies the basis for the ROI calculation.
In their study, UIUC calculated the ROI with the total library budget and only for
comparison reasons with the materials budget. “If the materials budget, rather than the
total budget, had been used, the ROI would have been approximately $12.” (Kaufman,
2008a, p. 32). For this study, the materials budget assigned to the Library and
Information Science section at the UB is used. This is done because this study focuses
on the IBI and not on the HU in general. For comparison, a second calculation is done
with the complete materials budget of the UB. The materials budget of the UB is
usually a combined amount of federal state money and earmarked capital such as
third-party funding, funds for educational books, and special grants for the acquisition
of electronic resources as well as funds spent on specific research. The latter is not
included in the materials budget used for comparison, because the budget for the LIS
section comes from the part of the materials budget that is state-funded. This second
calculation makes sense as the citations in the grant proposals by the IBI do not remain

19. entirely in the LIS section. Some additional sources from fields such as law, economics, ROI in German
and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) are used as well. libraries
In 2009 the materials budget for the UB was e4,700,000. Approximately e2,200,000
was earmarked capital as explained above, the rest (approximately e2,500,000) was
distributed among the various subjects. The UB has a defined model for the dispersion
of budgets among all subjects available at the HU. In 2009 the budget for the LIS
section was e30,600 (1.21 per cent of the federal state funding). The ROI is calculated 159
with both values, e30,600 and e2,500,000.
Doing the math
Between 2006 and 2009, 13 grant proposals applied for by applicants related to the IBI
have been successfully accomplished or begun. The total amount of grands awarded
for these grant proposals sums up to approximately e3,190,502.72 (in three years),
approximately e1,063,500.90 per year. The average size of grants the IBI received is
approximately e245,423.29. Owing to the decisions made for calculating the budget
and evaluating the citations, the figures are all approximate figures.
Illinois calculated their proportion of grants secured using library materials in US
dollar, by using their average size grant (see Table III, lines 7 and 8 of the ROI
calculation by UIUC below).
In a second step, UIUC multiplied the result of the above calculation with the
number of grants expended in the year 2006. This provided UIUC with the size of the
grant income using library materials (see Table IV, lines 9 and 10 of the ROI
calculation by UIUC).
For the German study, the total amount of Euro secured with the help of third-party
funds is available for calculating the proportion of grant income using library
materials; hence no average size grant is needed. The two steps above were combined
into one. The proportion of grants awarded in Euro using the library is then calculated
by multiplying the percentage of citations obtainable through the UB with the total
amount of third-party funds awarded for 2006-2009 (see Table IV ROI calculation for
the IBI and the UB).
Table V ROI calculations for the IBI and the UB shows the following results:
.
13 grant proposals contain 474 citations of which 190 are obtainable through the
library;
.
more than 40 percent of the grants awarded to the IBI came from citations in
those 13 grant proposals that are obtainable through the UB;
$
Table III.
Average size grant 63,923 Lines 7 and 8 of the ROI
Proportion of grant $ secured using library materials 25,369 (78.14% * 50.79% * $ 63,923)/100/100 calculation by UIUC
Table IV.
No. grants (expended) in year 6,232 Lines 9 and 10 of the ROI
$ proportion of grant income using library materials 158,099,608 (25,369 * 6,232) calculation by UIUC

20. BL No. grant proposals 13 Total no. of successful grant proposals at
23,4 the IBI between 2006-2009
No. citations 474 Total count of citations
No. citations obtainable through the UB 190
1st calculation
% citations obtainable through the UB 40.08% For all grant proposals
160 In total (see Appendix 2. Grants
e total size of grants awarded 3,190,502.72 Calculations Final)
2nd calculation
e proportion of grant income using the UB 1,278,753.49 (40,08% * 3,190,502.72)/100
No. of materials budget expended for LIS
in 2009 e30,600
Approx. no. of materials budget expended
for LIS in 2006-2009 e91,800 (e30,600 * 3 years)
3rd calculation
University return in e grant on LIS 13,93 (1,278,753.49/91,800)
Approx. no. of total materials budget for
UB in 2009 2,500,000
Approx. no. of total materials budget for
UB in 2006-2009 7,500,000 (e2,500,000 * 3 years)
Table V. 4th calculation
ROI calculations for the University return in e grant on library e0,17 (1,278,753.49/7,500,000)
IBI and the UB with the help of the IBI (materials budget)
.
for 2006-2009 the total grant income at the IBI is approximately e3,190,502.72;
.
the average proportion of the grant income generated by using the library
resources is approximately e1,278,753.49;
.
dividing the proportion of the grant income generated by using the library
resources through the approximate amount of the materials budget expended for
the subject area LIS in three years, calculates a ROI of e13,93 for every Euro
invested in the subject area LIS between 2006 and 2009; and
.
dividing the proportion of the grant income generated by using the library
resources through the approximate total materials budget expended in three
years, calculates a ROI of e0,17 for every Euro invested in the materials budget
of the UB between 2006 and 2009.
The results show that implementing the UIUC concept and formula in a different, in
this case German academic setting, is possible. Certain amendments had to be made,
but no major problems occurred.
Similarities and differences
In summary, it is clear that the essentials of the study created by UIUC have stayed the
same, but that components were adapted for the study to work in a German academic
setting that is considerably smaller in scope than UIUC’s facilities. For one, UIUC had
to deal with a very large amount of grant proposals in just one year. This study had to
adapt UIUC handling of large amounts of proposals in order to be able to work with a

21. comparably very small amount of 13 grant proposals. The huge difference in scope ROI in German
indicated the possibility and maybe necessity to change the analysis and evaluation of libraries
the citations. As mentioned previously, the smaller scale of this study made a
full-blown survey unnecessary. It was possible to evaluate the citations individually
and thereby to retrieve a more accurate proportion of grants in Euro secure-able by
using library materials. Using citations in grant proposals as basis for income
generated by the library has stayed the same. 161
Further, UIUC had to establish that applicant bodies do actually use their own
library and its resources for citations made in grant proposals. For this they had to
conduct a large scale survey examining the tenure system faculty perceptions on the
role the library plays in their research and grant-seeking activities (Kaufman, 2008a).
On the one hand, the study for the IBI and the UB could rely on UIUC’s findings that
“75% of respondents stated that over three-quarters of the citations they included in
their grant applications were accessed through the library” (Kaufman, 2008a, p. 31). On
the other hand, individually evaluating each citation gave a clear result which citations
and how many citations were obtainable through the library (UB), not indicating
however if the applicant bodies really used the UB.
Regarding the latter, when asking faculty at the IBI for the necessary documents
and grant proposals to conduct this study, a question intended to affirm UIUC’s
proposition was included. The recipients were asked to rate on a spectrum ranging
from one to five how often they use materials that could be made available by the
university library; including databases, eBooks, electronic journals, and the
edoc-Server. Rating with a one would imply 0 per cent of one’s materials are
detectable with the help of the UB, two would imply 25 per cent are obtainable, three
would imply 50 per cent, four would imply 75 per cent and five would imply 100 per
cent are obtainable through the UB[59]. The spectrum was kept very elementary to
simplify answering the question. It was done in the hope of receiving a greater amount
of replies. Even so only two answers came back; one voted a one or maximum two,
stating that the grant proposals involved are usually focusing on applied research
rather than subject-specific fundamentals, thereby indicating that those grant
proposals are not citing many resources obtainable through a library. Interestingly
enough, the grant proposals by this person had low amounts of citations. The second
answer voted a four but was very unsure about it, simply because the person felt it was
impossible to prove it. The grant proposals this person was involved in contained
considerably more citations than the grant proposals by the previous person.
As it was possible to analyse each citation individually, receiving answers from all
applicants was not that important for this study, but it would have been interesting to
find out how much perception (rate) and reality (analysed citations) there is. If more
answers were received, it would have been possible as well to verify that UIUC was
right in their assumption to use the statements by their tenure system faculty (i.e. 78.14
per cent of faculty using citations in grant proposals) as basis for their ROI
calculations. All the same, this is not the research question of this study, but could be
an interesting follow-up study.
The final calculations differ at two places. On the one hand, UIUC calculates the
proportion (%) of grant income using library materials with the help of an average size
grant that is multiplied with the number of grants expended in the year in question.
For the IBI/UB study, calculating the average size grant was not necessary. As part of

22. BL the evaluation of the thirteen grant proposals, the total amount of grants awarded was
23,4 estimated and used for receiving the result (proportion of grant income using library
materials).
In the final calculation by UIUC, the ROI was calculated with the total library
budget of UIUC’s university library. The ROI calculated as part of this study, was
calculated with the materials budget allocated for the LIS subject area. Only for
162 comparability was it calculated with the total materials budget as well. The latter
calculation is not important for this study, because the grant proposals that were
evaluated are all based on the IBI and the subject area Library and Information
Science.
Table VI lists all similarities and differences at a glance.
Essentially, UIUC’s formula for calculating a ROI for an academic library has been
maintained, but certain amendments due to scale and information available were made.
Conclusion
Although a different academic setting, the study for the IBI is very small in scale and
focused on one subject area only. A further study for all subject areas at the Humboldt
University, Berlin would provide a clearer picture of the strength and weaknesses
adapting the formula devised by UIUC into a different environment. The author,
however, does not believe that any major problems would appear when conducting the
study on a larger scale in any German academic setting. Going along as this study did,
and individually analysing hundreds of citations in grant proposals might be too much
of an effort on a larger scale. This depends on the amount of people involved, however,
and one could always resort to the way UIUC estimated their amount of proposals
including citations. When conducting such a survey, a limitation of people who would
receive the survey is not necessary in Germany; professors, faculty, and members of
research staff should be allowed to answer if they take part in grant proposal
applications.
Interestingly, another question came up that, in the author’s opinion, could be
answered with the help of UIUC’s formula. The author believes the difference in grant
Description of
process UIUC IBI/UB
Initial position/ Study conducted for a major university Study conducted for a subject area and
scope and its library its institution at a university
Amount of Large (2,879 proposals/1,456 successful Small (13 successful proposals)
proposals ones)
Analysis With the help of estimations/based on a Individual evaluation for each citation
large-scale survey (50,79% proposals (474 citations in total, 190 obtainable
inc. citations obtained through library) through the library ¼ 40,08%)
Calculation 1 Calculates $ of grant income using Calculates the proportion of grant
library materials with an average size income using library materials with the
grant multiplied with grants (expended) total amount of grants awarded between
in 2006 2006-2009
Table VI. Calculation 2 Calculates ROI with the total library Calculates ROI with the materials
Similarities and budget budget for LIS (plus total materials
differences budget/total library budget)

23. proposal application behaviour between subject areas could be explored. One would ROI in German
expect application-orientated subjects such as ICT, physics, chemistry, and economics libraries
to have large amounts of grant proposals with a high ROI, as they are understood as
the subjects third-parties are interested in. It is true that technically- and
economically-orientated universities have higher third-party funding than others.
Some of the application-orientated grant proposals for the IBI had low amounts of
citations, however, and would not have a very high ROI in regards to the library. A 163
quick glance at the amount of grant proposals at the HU[60] in subject areas such as
African studies/literature (ten research projects), English and American Studies (26
research projects), or German literature (43 research projects) show a surprising
amount of research studies; it occurred that it would be interesting to evaluate their
ROI in regards to the library. The final ROI figures would not indicate which subject is
better or worth more in creating a ROI for the university, but the size of results would
perhaps illuminate differences in research behaviour and eventually help a university
library to decide which collections for which subject area to extend.
UIUC has planned applying their ROI formula to multiple institutions as well as
expanding the longitudinal scope. It will be interesting to see their follow-up studies
that might show differences in institutional characters or in the countries as well.
The only problem that can be seen with the study by UIUC is the fact that they base
the proportion of grant proposals containing citations obtainable through the library
on a survey. Kingma validated their model, but the survey is UIUC’s weakest link, and
any study going along the same lines needs to make sure that their survey is
impervious.
This study validates the original research question “Can the methodology
developed by UIUC be applied to German universities?” It shows that UIUC developed
a ROI model and formula that is modifiable enough to fit into different academic
settings. Their formula had to be adapted, but it was easy to do so. As said before,
university libraries implementing the formula have to take extra special care when
evaluating the citations either with the help of a survey, or by counting them
individually. If striving for a concrete ROI figure, the evaluation of the citations is the
focal point.
Hopefully, ROI studies as this one by UIUC will help to value academic libraries’
impact on research and revenue generating activities.
Notes
1. www.hu-berlin.de/ (accessed April 25, 2010).
2. “Deans from a number of leading iSchools have joined together to leverage the power of
leading iSchools in building awareness of, support for and involvement with the iField
among key constituencies, principally the media, business community, those who fund
research, student prospects, and users of information.“ www.ischools.org/site/about/
(accessed February 15, 2010).
3. www.ub.hu-berlin.de/ueber-uns/profil (accessed February 15, 2010).
4. www.investopedia.com/terms/r/returnoninvestment.asp (accessed March 27, 2010).
5. See publications in Social Enterprise Journal (2005), Strategic HR Review (2009), Journal of
Consumer Marketing (1999), International Journal of Hospitality Management (1983),
Handbook of Business Strategy (2004), Journal of Accounting and Public Policy (1996).

24. BL 6. www.google.de/url?sa ¼ t&source ¼ web&ct ¼ res& cd ¼ 1&ved ¼ 0CBAQFjAA&url ¼
http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.129.
23,4 2114%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&ei ¼ zmSFS-eCNKTqmgP-8cGtAg&usg ¼
AFQjCNE3g7V508WEU8gUbIigWvmf-No_CQ&sig2 ¼ Sb7IC6GJzU9hotNT-kHoUQ
(accessed February 21, 2010).
7. www.bl.uk/pdf/measuring.pdf (accessed February 21, 2010).
164 8. This quote translates as: “The awareness for reasons why libraries and librarians exist was
missing as well as the comprehension how to gain and keep support from their beneficiaries.
Only now this has changed.”
9. http://mel.org/files/calculatorcode.php (accessed March 23, 2010).
10. The Library of Michigan Return on Investment Calculator as well as the North Suburban
Library System (NSLS) calculator allows its users to enter the amount of books, magazines,
audio books, movies, etc. borrowed per month and calculate the ROI in the case of NSLS with
the help of average list and retail prices of those items. Michigan in return does not specify
where the numbers come from and let you speculate if they used retail prices as well or
considered other costs such as library budget used for human resources needed for records
management as well.
11. www.youtube.com/watch?v ¼ TgqoM5ZNu3Q (accessed March 23, 2010) The video shows
a selfmade advertisement for the North Suburban Library System’s ROI calculator.
12. www.bmbf.de/de/1321.php (accessed February 21, 2010). The German Exzellenzinitiative
¨
funded by the BMBF (Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung) claims to support
cutting-edge research at outstanding universities, but the first two rounds (2006, 2007) show
a strong bias towards richer German states. Only a fraction of the nominated winning
¨
universities are not in the two richest German states Baden-Wurrtemberg and Bavaria.
13. Freely translated this quote says: “The German field of Library and Information Science
(LIS) has not shown much inclination to deal with this.”
14. Freely translated this quote says: “Virtual prices are estimated through surveys conducted
with users.”
15. www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ (accessed February 18, 2010).
16. www.uni-goettingen.de/ (accessed February 18, 2010).
17. www.dfg.de/index.jsp (accessed March 23, 2010).
18. www.bmbf.de/ (accessed March 23, 2010).
19. http://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/OCTOPUS/ (accessed March 23, 2010).
¨
20. The five Universities of Applied Science searched for, were: Hochschule fur Angewandte
Wissenschaften Hamburg, Fachhochschule Potsdam, Hochschule Darmstadt, Hochschule
¨
fur Technik, Wirtschaft und Kultur Leipzig and Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart.
21. http://forschung.hu-berlin.de/statistik/ (accessed March 16, 2010).
`
22. Personae are fictive people devised to represent a certain clientele (in Marketing) or users
(Usability studies). The persona devised for this study is between 26 and 28 years old, single,
has a postgraduate degree and starts the first job as research assistant.
23. For calculations of the BAT (Bundesangestelltentarif) see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Bundesangestelltentarifvertrag or http://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/tv-l/berlin/ (accessed
March 26, 2010). People employed in the public service in Germany are paid based on a
complicated system considering previous knowledge, age, marital status, place of residence
and other. As this is very complex only average costs may be calculated.

25. 24. For more information on TV-L see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarifvertrag_f%C3%BCr_ ROI in German
den_%C3%B6ffentlichen_Dienst_der_L%C3%A4nder (accessed March 26, 2010) Again
there are no sources available in English. libraries
25. Translates as: Initial position/own preparatory work.
26. www.kobv.de/ (accessed April 16, 2010). Kooperativer Bibliotheksverbund Berlin
Brandenburg’ is the cooperative network of all academic, public and many corporate
libraries in Berlin and Brandenburg supporting each other by creating a wholesome stock of 165
`
materials and media as well as devising new services for their clientele.
27. www.dfg.de/forschungsfoerderung/formulare/download/1_02.pdf (accessed January 12,
2010). Freely translated this quote says: “The grant proposal should not exceed 20 pages
and should be coherent on its own; reading citations and additional literature should not be
necessary for comprehension”.
28. www.dini.de/ (accessed April 10, 2010).
29. http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/i2010/index_en.htm (accessed March 30,
2010).
30. Most of the time European projects receive only 50 per cent of the estimated budget for
funding. The other half needs to be contributed by the participating institutions (own
contributions). Hence is it important to indicate when talking about European budgets if the
numbers are including or excluding own contributions. As far as I understood the
calculations, own contributions are not always monetary, but can be set against equipment
such as computers, costs for Internet connection and such.
31. www.iuwis.net/ (accessed April 13, 2010)
32. www.uni-konstanz.de/ (accessed April 23, 2010).
33. www.urheberrechtsbuendnis.de/index.html.de (accessed April 14, 2010).
34. CMS are the facilities responsible for all computer and technical support at the HU situated
in South-East Berlin in Adlershof. The director of the CMS is at the same time a professor at
the IBI.
35. http://lockss.stanford.edu/lockss/Home (accessed April 23, 2010).
36. http://kopal.langzeitarchivierung.de/index_koLibRI.php.de (accessed April 23, 2010).
37. www.europeanaconnect.eu/ (accessed April 5, 2010).
38. http://europeana.eu/portal/ (accessed April 5, 2010).
39. http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/language-technologies/project-galateas_en.html (accessed
April 20, 2010).
40. http://doarc.projects.isn-oldenburg.de/ (accessed April 5, 2010).
41. www.eerqi.eu/ (accessed April 3, 2010).
42. Translates as: “Measuring the diversity of research”
43. See: www.fu-berlin.de/ (accessed April 15, 2010).
44. www.carpet-project.net/ (accessed April 20, 2010).
45. www.mpg.de/instituteProjekteEinrichtungen/weitereEinrichtungen/mpdl/index.html
46. www.uni-koeln.de/
47. www.fotomarburg.de/ (accessed April 12, 2010).
48. http://medienportal.hu-berlin.de/ (accessed April 15, 2010).