Social impact and return on investment from cultural heritage institutions: An application to public libraries in Colombia

Abstract

Evaluation of cultural heritage organisations and the returns on the resources they are provided with is becoming increasingly important, not only because of the economic efficiency implications but also vis-à-vis measuring their performance in terms of social policy and public governance. The present study seeks to estimate the social impact of libraries, as heritage representative institutions, from the case of the Medellin Public Library System (Spanish acronym – SBPM) in Colombia. This network of libraries is made up of 26 units that – in addition to traditional functions involving loans and custody – offer activities geared towards personal development and the enhancement of the community. The proposed method entails a combination of direct observation indicators together with other indirect or subjective indicators aimed at gauging social impact, applying two different yet complementary techniques; social return on investment (SROI), and contingent valuation (CV). The indicators obtained evidence different results when including subjective valuations in the calculations based on direct observations and financial returns, in line with the differences between the notions of price and value. Based on the findings to emerge, we show that public libraries are socially viable institutions and that they contribute towards the subjective well-being of their users, thereby legitimizing the public investment made to ensure their existence and functioning in the areas where they are located.