Page 101 - DLIS406_ACADEMIC_LIBRARY_SYSTEM

Academic Library System Reena Kapoor, Lovely Professional University

Notes
Unit 10: Financial Management

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
10.1 Source of Funds

10.2 State Funding of Public Libraries
10.2.1 Levels of State Funding
10.2.2 Patterns of State Funding
10.2.3 2005 Public Library Finance Survey
10.3 Summary
10.4 Keywords

10.5 Review Questions
10.6 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:
• Know about the source and funds
• Explain the state funding of public libraries
• Discuss about the levels of state funding

• Describe the patterns of state funding.

Introduction

During the last twenty years there was a growing trend to align library and information
service management to business models of management. In the late 1970s business conditions
were rapidly evolving in response to changes in economic thinking. Monetarism and its political
children Reaganomics (in the U.S.) and Thatcherism (in the UK) reinvigorated the debates
about taxation, investment, and public spending. Market forces, the role of markets, and
competition were given new prominence and interpretations. The roles of the consumer and
customer in society and in commerce were highlighted. Efficiency, the elimination of waste,
and quality delivery were new watchwords. The role of central government, economic intervention,
and balances between public and private sector activities were analyzed, criticized, and redefined.
In short, the deregulation of economic activity was to be the favored means of ensuring
growth and wealth creation. This cycle of change would inevitably come to affect every sector
of economic activity including library and information services.
The recent historical record, and indeed contemporary events, shows that the library and the
information sector have had to face a changing and ever more turbulent environment since the
late 1970s. Rising library materials price indices were amongst the first indicators (e.g., well
summarized in Cummings, 1992). Mid-1970s inflation—a symptom of rising oil prices—affected

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