Exploring

Program Funding

Budgeting

Budgeting is one of the most challenging aspects of preservation management. You must decide what preservation activities are needed within your institution, how much they will cost, and how you will pay for them. You will also need to decide what work will be carried out in house and what might be outsourced.

Preservation Spending: How Much Is Enough?

In an era of declining budgets and staffing, there are never enough resources to address all preservation needs. To determine whether your institution is on the right track in terms of preservation spending, it can be helpful to compare your efforts to those of other institutions.

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) issues an annual report on preservation statistics in ARL member libraries, which primarily represent libraries that hold 2 million volumes or more. These reports collect statistics on the organizational structure of library preservation programs, staffing levels, preservation expenditures, conservation treatment, and preservation reformatting.

ARL statistics gathered over a number of years have shown that research libraries with active preservation programs spend approximately 5 to 10 percent of their total budget on preservation (e.g., prevention of deterioration, preparing materials for use, and repairing/copying materials). This statistic does not include costs related to the building and systems that enable the library to maintain a preservation-quality environment. The larger the library, the higher the percentage of total library expenditures that tends to be directed to preservation.

While these figures obviously do not apply directly to other types and sizes of institution, they are useful as a general model. See the ARL Preservation Statistics Web page for PDF documents of the ARL reports.

Reallocating Existing Funds

Remember that initiating new preservation activity does not always have to involve allocation of new funds. When planning a preservation program, review your institution's budget to identify any activities that could be redirected to assist in meeting preservation goals. For example, most archives already purchase folders and storage boxes, and many libraries purchase pamphlet binders or other enclosures. A change in the type of material bought and/or training of staff to use the enclosures properly may greatly improve the overall protection of collections with little or no additional cost.

Since reallocation of existing funds may cross departmental lines, it must be undertaken as part of a cooperative preservation planning process that is coordinated with the institution's overall strategic plan.

Cost Analysis

Cost analysis is crucial to effective budgeting for preservation. In order to decide how best to accomplish a particular preservation goal, a preservation manager must be able to analyze a preservation activity and its associated costs. A cost analysis might be needed in any of the following situations:

• submitting a budget proposal for a preservation activity within the institution
• preparing a response to an institutional request for cost reductions
• developing a cost estimate for a grant proposal
• comparing the costs of carrying out an activity in house versus using a vendor

The process of carrying out a cost analysis is explained in detail in The Preservation Manager's Guide to Cost Analysis (see Additional Resources). After identifying the product, service, or other activity to be analyzed (for example, to determine the costs of producing book boxes in-house), the preservation manager must gather detailed information on the procedures for carrying out the service or activity.

Costs may include supplies and equipment; services; labor; or indirect costs (e.g., overhead). In each of these categories, the cost of each resource needed to complete the activity should be calculated on a per-item basis. Remember to include "hidden" costs (e.g., supply costs may include not just the cost of the items, but shipping costs or custom order fees).

All assumptions made must be documented (for example, if the cost of staff time is not included in a comparative cost analysis because it is the same in both scenarios), and the effectiveness of the cost analysis must be measured by comparison with actual costs or with similar activities at another institution.