A measurement of the resource utilization efficiency of university libraries

Abstract

This paper employs data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure the relative resource utilization efficiency of 23 university libraries in Taipei City and County. The most notable feature of this paper is that it uses a single input/output measure to characterize efficiency/performance. We calculate the overall efficiency score, as well as the technical and scale efficiency scores of each university library. The estimated results show that 11 university libraries are relatively efficient. The results also show that nine out of these 11 have a relatively good academic research function. Only two of them are attributed with lower research capabilities. We also rated the top three libraries which enjoy the highest levels of efficiency in the sample. This shows that the resource utilization of these university libraries is functioning well. Finally, we find that the inefficient libraries manage their acquisition expenditures and book circulation poorly.