Acquisitions and Budgets

For the first time in the 6+ years that I have been here, I feel like I have finally been able to achieve what I have always wanted to do in dividing the budget. This institution has struggled financially in the past quite severely. When I first came I only spent 1/6 of the amount that I spent this year. So we have improved significantly.

About 4 years ago we were working on accreditation. The acquisitions budget was divided (into percentages) by the Accreditation Steering subcommittee. I am on that committee so I did have some input. With 4 years behind us I have been able to catch up in areas that we were lacking. Yet there is always the drive for balance. I did not feel we really had acheived that balance.

I have now written up a proposal, and received approval from two key faculty members to adjust those percentages. This will now go to the appropriate Accreditation Steering subcommittee. Furthermore, I have divided each of three major areas into "areas of study" so that within these three areas, each professor gets the same amount of money spent on them as the others.

Balance can be looked at in several ways. In General Education vs theology we have improved. Where we are still unbalanced is within these categories. Some Gen Ed professors did very well in submitting requests. So we are now heavy in two areas of Gen Ed, but still lacking in others. The same can be said for Bible and Theology.

I'm sure we all have similar difficulties. Some faculty members are very dutiful in giving you requests/lists of books to order. Others do not. This year I am going to meet with each faculty member and do the looking for them. This should help with the disparity of requests.

When it came to deciding how to subdivide the major sections of the budget, I was in quandry for some time how to do this. Do I divide it by number of majors we offer? Do I divide it by number of professors? Do I divide it by ratio of students to a class/subject? What to do, what to do.

I finally came up with looking at "areas of study." This was an easier handle. We are a small school so we don't have full fledge deparments in some cases. Those are called "programs" with program directors. Others are big enough (with more than one professor) to be called departments. Most of our teachers are full time, but some are part time. But they all teach classes that are necessary. So how do I divide and be equitable to all.

In these areas of study I have mixed in the faculty with them. Most cases have one, maybe two professors to each area. This is particularly true in our General Education "section." I came up with 12 "areas of study" for Gen Ed. They get about a third of the budget. So that is divided by 12 and I now know how much will be spent for each of those "areas of study" for Gen Ed.

Within Professional Education/College (PEC) there are 3 major areas. These are subdivided into a total of 14 "areas of study" with the appropriate faculty assigned to each. I gave them all equal weight, however two areas have two faculty assigned to one area. (They get one "bite" so to speak.) PEC also gets about 1/3 of the acquisitions budget. Their third is divided by 14.

Professional Education/Seminary (PES) has 4 faculty and areas of study. They, too, get about 1/3 of the pie. Divided by 4 they do get bigger individual servings. But given that Seminary resources are so lacking, and given that most of their resources are also usable by the upperclassmen of college, this is still worth the pieces being divided this way.

We do have 10% of our budget that is devoted to reference and non-curriculum subjects. Once that 10% is taken off the top the rest is more easily divided into the thirds mentioned above, (give or take 5%).

Even though we are required to purchase one copy of all textbooks, they can still be assigned to each of the three areas mentioned. Overall, this plan will give us a much better sense of what we are purchasing for what area and not be heavy in one area and lean-to-nothing in another. This gives me great relief. Time will tell this time next year if this worked like I am hoping it will.

Library Surveys

This spring’s surveys in some ways told us nothing new – mostly satisfied with resources, staffing and services. There are always those who complain about it being too loud or too quiet, or never any new books, even though they walk by a New Books display every time they come into the library. But this year, about half noted that the New Books display was found helpful. I think it is becoming slightly more noticed. But you do wonder if some even realize the new books that you do buy. We send the faculty a list of new books every month. Maybe we should send this to students as well. Another thought I have is posting it on the library’s webpage each month – anything to raise awareness.

It turns out that the Textbook display is a big hit, even though we weren’t able to get all of them. Hopefully we will be able to add to it, this fall. This is very helpful to those who haven’t gotten theirs in yet or don’t have the money to buy them. Money is always tight, no matter what decade you live in I have discovered.

Surprising was how many actual do pay attention to our Special Books display on a 4-tier cart; and to the bulletin board. The fact that anybody notices them is thrilling for me.

We had 2-3 students this year that were challenging in following the no-talking rules this year. Correspondingly we had 2-3 surveys that complained about the no-talking rules. (Hmmmm!) I have noticed this is almost always freshmen. We will see if they return this fall and if they continue the same point of view. But someone else will take their place.

We have a huge disparity of those not using the services of requesting books from other libraries in our consortium. It looks like that will be our focus this next year. Besides the regular one-shot orientation, we are going to try “embedded instruction” to also help students to connect the need to knowing how to use the library in a timely manner with actually using it to their best advantage in fulfilling their assignments.

ACL 2007-Signs of a good conference:

Finding others in similar situations as yours
Aching feet and bleary eyes on the first night
Handouts you read again when you get home
Social engagements scheduled for afterwards
Not enough exercise and too tired to get any
Keeping in touch with your roommate
Answers to nagging questions
New ideas swapped over lunch
Getting your pick of door prizes
New books purchased or ordered
Positive feedback from your workshop
Someone remembered you from last year
Using suggestions from a fellow colleague
168 pictures uploaded to an online photo service
Being glad to be back in your own comfortable bed
(Figure out what the outline of this list looks like)
Renewing friendships face to face
Changing methods you held dear
Getting to visit new places
Discovery of new resources
New thoughts shared in workshops
Making plans now for next year
Hint*
Left home
Good turnout
Missed friends
New inside jokes
List of new emails
Gaining four pounds
Winning a door prize
Freebies you will use
High rating on surveys
Professional networking
Finding a fellow hobbyist
Following up on contacts
New board game learned
Smooth-running schedule
Pages and pages of notes
Pile of new business cards










*(squint your eyes)
I would have suggested you cut and paste this into a word processor. But when I did this the length of lines changed in the bottom part. You can try it and see if it helps you or not. Be sure and reduce the image to about 25%. That gives you the best overall view of what the list looks like. Have Fun!

Traits of Catalogers...

-compiled from a recent listserv (UNscientific survey)

(Love of) team sports
Card games
Forest ranger/lumber jack
Create order out of chaos
Diagram sentences
Puzzle solver (all kinds) (in ink)
Large personal library
Service oriented
Dog lover
Orderly desk
Interest in preservation
Law enforcement officer
Word games
Sort M&M’s by color (or Skittles)
Sort out mixed nuts
Create own mazes or puzzles
Cat lover
Eat food in certain order
Messy desks
Separate food, so it doesn’t touch
Rule-based games (not strategy)
Paper arts
Needle work (e.g. counted cross stitch)
Beading? – No, just bead sorting!
Read encyclopedia, dictionaries and atlases for fun
List maker
Familiar with a foreign language
Learning about something new every day
Alter sewing patterns
Buy less fabric then required for above patterns
Creative
Visual
Oh yeah, and a love for books


PS: someone once said - When Hinkley tried to assassinate President Reagan, a news broadcaster interviewed a psychiatrist who described Hinkley as having a mental disorder that was "common to" librarians and forest rangers. Honest.

Original source unknown: They can test for that now (the above mentioned disorder). During a tour of a local mental hospital that acted as a library, a visitor asked what the criteria were which defined whether an applicant should be institutionalized and which duties they should be assigned.

"Well", said the tour-guide, "we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a fork, a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to each applicant and ask that they empty the bathtub."

"Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would ignore the fork and use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."

"No," said the tour-guide, "a normal person would pull the plug and get out of here."

"As for qualified applicants, patrons demand everything in a bucket, reference librarians want to serve in a cup, catalogers would analyze every spoonful, and administrators are puzzled as to why so much falls through the tines."

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I am off again next week as I will be attending the ACL annual conference, this year in Grand Rapids, MI then spending the weekend at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, IN (a genealogist's dream).