A Cost Study in the Preparations Department of a Small College Library

Abstract

-r'_HE layman library user usually has no conception of the costs involved a in placing a book in a library, beyond the obvious one of the book's purchase price. There are countless examples of the well-meaning patron who donates a collection of out-of-date volumes to a library, expecting gratitude, and who is puzzled, hurt, and often insulted when confronted with the explanation that the cost of cataloging and preparing the books for the shelves would outweigh their practical value and use. The librarian, on the other hand, has tacitly accepted the high cost of book preparation through years of familiarity, without investigating the factors involved. Such unquestioning acceptance is basically dishonest; costs can be justified only in terms of the service they make possible. Careful studies of cataloging costs will have, therefore, a primary value to the library in suggesting methods for increasing economy and efficiency, as well as a secondary value in furnishing to the uncomprehending layman evidence of the need for larger library appropriations. The study described below is the record of a cataloger's personal approach to this problem. Since equipment, supplies, and overhead are beyond the control of the cataloger, his chief concern must be with labor costs. In the preparations department, books are prepared physically for use, arranged for convenience, and indexed according to their contents by means of a card catalog. The production of the preparations department may therefore be measured in units either of books (titles or volumes) or of cards. In an attempt to discover the relation between this production and its labor cost in the preparations department of a small college library, records were kept of work produced and of the number and cost of the hours of labor which produced it during the school year 1941-42. The data obtained are tabulated in Table i. These figures may be useful for budgeting and for comparison with other libraries or with other periods of time, but they offer no lever for economizing. They must be accepted as they stand because the labor involved is not analyzed in terms of the cost of individual processes. Reports of recent investigations of library costs were studied in an endeavor to determine their applicability to the problem at hand. Perhaps the most thorough investigation of library costs which has so far appeared is that conducted by Fremont Rider at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut.' His analysis covered all activities of the library, grouped in eleven major classifications. The costs of nonproductive or indirect labor, building rental, equipment, over,head, raw materials, and miscellaneous expenses were carefully allocated among these major classifications. From this analysis Mr. Rider emerged with a determination of the labor and the total