How Much Are You Worth?
How much are you worth? It is such a loaded question and it is open to interpretation. Personally I think I am invaluable, irreplaceable, and overall worth more than my weight in gold. Of course that is my perspective.
As librarians we naturally tend to think our libraries and our services are invaluable. However, hospital administration most likely has their own perspective on the value of library and its services. It is up to us a librarians to prove our value to them. Simply giving gate counts and circulation statistics ain’t gonna cut it these days.
Many years ago, early in my library career, I had lunch with a close family friend at the hospital where I worked. My lunch partner was the primary man for fundraising and securing large donations and money for the hospital. You know how college campuses and hospitals have various buildings named after various wealthy families? He was the guy who usually got those families to donate. He also happened to be a very close family friend. To me he was just Bill. To everybody else in the hospital (particularly the big wigs) he was the man with the money. Throughout our lunch together there was always somebody stopping by to say hi, shake hands, and possibly mention securing donors for some sort of new project or building. Our fragmented and often interrupted casual lunch was the first time I saw often he was asked for money for good of the institution.
People are always asking for more money in every institution. Administration often funds departments that they perceive to be profitable or helping the hospital. Unfortunately the hospital library is not always thought of as profitable to the institution. Librarians need to start showing how the library is profitable by supporting the hospital. Librarians like to point to various articles showing how our services impact patient care, save hospitals money, etc. That is good, but your administrator is going to want to know specifically how your library and your services do what the articles mention. That is where we often fall short.
Don’t worry. There are plenty of resources available to you to begin and continue the process of demonstrating your value to the hospital.
mla-hls wiki Advocacy
MidContinental Valuing Library Services Calculator
Jackson County (Oregon) Library Services Calculator
Northern Suburban Library System ROI Calculator –Can use it to determine library’s ROI to the community or a library user’s savings per visit.
Hospital Library Promotion Toolkit
Explanation of Values Used in the Library Calculator – University of Hawaii at Manoa
Online Value of Public Library Services Tool
Maine State Library Library Use Calculator
Library Research Service Individual Return on Investment Calculator
Vermont Library Association Calculator
Wellseley Free Library Value Calculator
ROI Calculator –Excel Spreadsheet from the Alamo Area Library System
Economic Impact of Libraries in Indiana
Many of these calculators are similar or even the same. What is interesting is to see how each library uses them and the values they place on certain services. No calculator is perfect but this give you a starting point to begin to put an actual number value (which administration loves) on your services. Then you can combine this information with your anecdotal evidence as to why you and your library are worth their weight in gold.
posted by The Krafty Librarian @ 8:14 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Thanks for including the new MidContinental Region library value calculator. I've looked at many of the others that you include in your list. I think it's important for librarians to understand that, despite what they are called, nearly all of these calculators are doing simple retail value calculations and not ROIs. The retail value is useful as librarians can show administrators what their users could potentially have to pay for equivalent resources and services on the retail market. They can be pretty impressive numbers. But, ROI is not retail value replacement. It is a percentage rate that an institution or firm would realize if it invested money in something. It's like comparing an interest bearing checking account to a 6 month CD. If you have money to invest you want it to go into the instrument that pays the most. To figure that out you have to know both what you are putting in (the costs of the resources or services including list or discounted price, librarian salary and benefits, perhaps the cost of space, lights, heat, electricity, furniture, etc) that are allocated to that resource or service. You also have to be able to state the value of the benefit of that resource or service to the user (time saved, subscription or purchase price not spent...). You might need to consider how many users would be likely to go out and pay for the service elsewhere (25%, 50%, 100%). Then you do a more complicated math exercise - subtract the cost of the resource or service from the benefit of same and divide that all by the cost. Multiple by 100 and you have the ROI. CIOs who understand a library's ROI may look more favorably on budget requests. They want the highest return. It's wise to discuss these concepts with your money wo/man so you both agree on the values you are using for costs and benefits. I'm working on an ROI calculator, but it's a much tricker concept to get into a simple fill in the blank form. It'll be posted on the MCR website when it's ready.
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