Page 131 - DLIS003_LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT

Library Administration and Management

Notes distribution of funds to major items of expenditure within the total library budget. It has already
been discussed in the previous unit about the basis for estimating the financial requirements of
libraries. Just to recapitulate, you have studied three methods of estimating funds, namely,
(i) per capita method, (ii) proportional method and (iii) method of details.
The second aspect of budgetary norms and standards that needs attention in this unit is the actual
distribution of budgetary funds to different competing heads of expenditure. The major heads of
expenditure in libraries are books and journals, and salaries and allowances, both of which are
to be combined to generate services. Ranganathan has suggested that the proportion of the
expenditure of a university library on these two major items be as follows:

Staff: 50%
Books and other: reading, materials 40%
Miscellaneous: 10%
The University Grants Commission Library Committee has suggested that a university library
with 5,000 students and 500 teachers and research fellows should have a budgetary provision of
`3,50,000 out of which ` 175,000 would be spent on books, journals and other kindred materials,
and a similar amount on staff, implying thereby that the expenditure on books and staff may be
equal, but general trend is that the expenditure on staff salaries trends to be higher than on
books. Thing into amount the recommendations of University Grants Commission, university
and education commissions and library experts, the general norms appear to be as follows:

Salaries and allowances 50%
Books 20%
Periodicals 13%
Binding 75%

Others (Supplies, Maintenance etc.) 10%
In the case of public libraries, the distribution is more or less the same for the major items of
expenditure.

Salaries and allowances 50%
Books 20%
Periodicals and Newspapers 5%
Binding 5%

Others 20%
Some Observations: Current thinking on library and information services, library budgeting
and related aspects, is on the following lines:

Library and information services are to be totally oriented to user needs, irrespective of
the types of libraries. User needs must be systematically assessed and obtained, on the
basis of which libraries should organise their services.
Library budgets, consequently, are to be in tune with need based services. The unit cost of
every operation in a library has to be worked out and budgetary estimates have to be built
on this data. The cost of library operations and services, particularly in India, is not
attempted. Libraries mostly operate on appropriated funds by the parent organisations
without any scientific basis for allotment. With the tremendous increase in the cost of
books, journal subscriptions, staff salaries, library and information services, etc., the
question very often arises whether library services should be continued to be given without

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