The IHSLA blog features the article "Showing the Money: Dollar values as Evidence of the Library's value" in the October 2005 (page 22) issue of National Network, the official newsletter of the Hospital Library section of the Medical Library Association, by Julia M. Esparza and Donna M. Record Deaconess Health System. This article is a follow up to their MLA 2005 poster Showing the Money: Utilizing Dollar Values to Show a Library's Value and Increase the Budget!

In the first year Esparaza and Record were able to demonstrate that the library provided over $50,000 worth of services to the hospital and received a 13% increase in their budget. The second year they were able to show they provided over $80,000 worth of services to the hospital and received an 8% budget increase. The amount of growth from the first year to the second justified the budget increase.

The nice thing about this article is that the authors give actual dollar amounts as to the value of their services, and it includes samples of cover sheets and forms use by the library staff to educate their users as to the true cost of their "free" services. Medical librarians can read this article and duplicate the same process at their hospital, hopefully with similar results.

Don't just sit around look at ways to show how much you are worth and prove it to your administrators.