1. Jeff Bailey, Library Director Linda Creibaum, Acquisitions and Serials Librarian Dean B. Ellis Library Arkansas State University November 6, 2014 Copyright Jeff Bailey and Linda Creibaum, 2014

2. Questions are welcome at any time, but we may defer answering a question until later in the session Interactive discussions are welcome

3. In 1997 the Arkansas State University library had no equitable means of making allocations Funds had not been reallocated/redistributed in many years One department accounted for nearly 20% of all collection development expenditures There was no funding to support new programs

4. We searched literature to discover methods of making allocations, including the use of a formula We chose to use a formula based on one used by Colorado State University and described in SPEC Kit #36

5. Do these steps before selecting formula factors

6. Doing this is much like a brainstorming session Cost of materials Degrees awarded per department or program Faculty per department or program Number of course sections offered Number of courses in catalog Number of degree programs Number of majors in each program Semester credit hour production (actual enrollment) Use of materials

7. Evaluate and refine the list Eliminate duplicates and non-viable suggestions Identify the factors that are most relevant to your campus

8. What we used Cost of materials (from the Library and Book Trade Almanac) Degrees awarded per department or program Faculty per department or program (FTE faculty) Number of course sections offered Number of courses in catalog Number of degree programs Number of majors in each program Semester credit hour production (actual enrollment) Use of materials

9. Determine what data is available or could be gathered Both internal (within your library and within the field) and external (campus, community, company, etc.) Eliminate possible factors for which data cannot be obtained Gather samples of available data

10. The original factors we used Semester credit hour production (actual enrollment) Number of classes offered Degrees awarded Faculty per department Cost of materials from Library and Book Trade Almanac Other factors that could have been used Number of degree programs Departmental external funding and/or research productivity Use of materials Number of courses in catalog

11. Weights Weighting is the assigning of values to indicate the importance or impact of each factor in the formula relative to the other formula factors The assigned weight values are inserted into the Excel spreadsheet and are used in formula calculations

12. Assigning weights to each factor These should be based upon each institution’s priorities and culture Library Committee Faculty Senate Institutional Administration Something else? We subdivided some factors before assigning weights Do test runs and adjust weights if needed

13. (by non-mathematicians) How the Formula Works

14. Screen Shot of a Previous Formula Run

15. You can do separate formula runs for… Books Journals Print Online resources (databases/ejournals/eBooks) Any other budgets your library may have Or any combination of these We chose to run a single formula for all allocations

16. Before running the formula, determine how much of your budget to allocate and how much to keep back for library use (if any) You may want or need to make adjustments to individual allocations after running the formula Do no harm Nonparticipation Special entities or protected programs

17. Your formula will probably need to be modified at some point in the future We have changed our formula Weights were adjusted Added departmental external funding as a factor in 2012

18. Document, document, document! Make the decisions and modify the formula to fit your library’s needs Feel free to contact either of us with any questions you may think of later

19. To download an interactive copy of the demo spreadsheet www.astate.edu/a/library/charleston

20. Jeff Bailey Library Director Dean B. Ellis Library Arkansas State University Jonesboro P.O. Box 2040 State University, AR 72467 870-972-2724 jbailey@astate.edu Linda Creibaum Acquisitions and Serials Librarian Dean B. Ellis Library Arkansas State University Jonesboro P.O. Box 2040 State University, AR 72467 870-972-3354 lcreibaum@astate.edu