Circulation

For my LIS 5511 Management of Information Collections class, I’m reading Peggy Johnson’s Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management. While reading about policy, planning and budgets, a particular quote made me stop and think:

The library’s annual financial report shows a direct relationship between the allocations it receives , its expenditures, and growth of the collection’s value as a long-term capital asset. Purchasing the right to access a remote resource or leasing a product on CD-ROM that must be returned at the termination of the lease are not capital expenditures. Thus, libraries and their parent bodies are experiencing a shift in return on investment. Money allocated to a library for resource does not increase the net capital value of the library to the extent it has done in the past.

While I have heard about many issues and concerns regarding increasing electronic collections (i.e., cost, etc), I never realized the impact they would have on a library’s ROI or capital value. I understand there is short term value in having access to electronic resources, but is the library getting the short end of the stick on this deal? Perhaps that doesn’t matter anyway – what matters is providing the access to library patrons.