[PADG:922] Preservation budgeting

["Normandy Helmer" <nhelmer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The library has been asked to put together a five-year needs assessment,
which will help campus determine its fund-raising priorities for the next
capital campaign. We are a mid-sized research library serving a state
university. Obviously, I would like to see preservation funding vastly
increased but I need to retain a semblance of rationality.

I can project desired funding levels for those activities which we manage
now. I can project costs for additional positions. I can make up numbers for
activities which we don't yet address.

But all this is constrained by our current response-driven activities, and
probably doesn't take into account all the possibilities as well as the
actual costs (including those now hidden by obsessive employees) of an
adequate pro-active collections care program. I'm familiar with ARL
benchmarks but things have changed a bit since those were issued.

Where does your money go? If you had more money and complete control, where
would you send your resources? Can anyone share appropriate allocations for
deacidification, reformatting, commercial binding, in-house binding, book
repair, conservation, non-book treatment, project funds, housekeeping,
training, outreach, etc? Has anyone developed a pro-active budget model,
perhaps tied to the size/age/condition of the collection or the annual
acquisition expenditure?

I would appreciate it if you could think about what money you have, how you
use it, and what your budget would look like in a better world.

Thanks!

Normandy Helmer
Head, Preservation & Binding Dept./
Oregon Newspaper Project
University of Oregon Library
nhelmer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
libweb.uoregon.edu/preservn/