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Apurba J Majumder Assistant Librarian Assam University, Silchar |
ABSTRACT
Purpose: The growing information needs of users because
of inter-disciplinary nature of research, availability of documents in various
formats, ever-increasing prices and inadequate budget have made financial
management of the library a challenging task. The basic motive of this study is
to evaluate various aspects of resource mobilisation and avenues of revenue
generation by a university library. It
aims to consider the various factors of fund generation to sustain in the curb
of recession in libraries. The study also tries to suggest some important areas
for proper access and optimum use of library resources, which will help the
library to minimise the library budget and subsequently helping in revenue
earning.
Design/Methodology/Approach: The study was initiated
with consulting existing research documents on various areas of revenue
generation, fund and resource mobilisation by a library. The researcher also
tried to collect first hand data by sharing experience of senior library
professionals. The various pros and cons also taken into consideration while
making the inference.
Research Objective: Today financial resources
are decreasing but specialization in various disciplines and emergence of new
and inter disciplinary area of research has increased the complexity and
tremendous pressure of users for better and quality services and resources are
creating a tremendous pressure on librarians. This study is an effort to raise
the issue and stimulate the library professions, how they can re-use
strategically the available assets to earn some additional revenue for the
library. Of course, the emerging new technologies and methods of management
need to be considered more for the purpose of the study.
Findings: The study was an attempt
to make an idea to propose the income avenues for university libraries. As the university library is non-profit
organization that do not have any income of their own except the library fees
and fines received from the student, it should always be kept in consideration
that the present day's scenario of prices, service remunerations and programmes
under operation should have relation with assistance allocation. This study can
serve as a basic standard to the Library & Information Professionals to
help themselves and the parent authority to sustain the challenge of fund
crisis in the university library.
Originality/value – it is expected that the
study will provide a useful podium for further research as well as usability
among all type of libraries to be improved.
Keywords: Revenue generation,
library resource mobilisation, library fund generation, Library recession,
Re-engineering
Type: Proposal, Feasibility
Study.
1. Introduction
The economic recession has
hit all sectors of our life as well as in the education sector. The education and research budget is
shrinking day by day and consequently the library budget is also diminishing.
Librarians are finding it tough to cope up with the requirement of the growing
users with limited budget along with the overflow of information. Even, the
funding agencies are also suggesting to generate own resources by academic
bodies. As per the current trends Library is one of the softest areas which is
on top priority in terms of curtailment by the authority whenever there is a
fund crunch.
The university library is
one of the major academic part and a good amount is spent for smooth running of
the library by purchasing books and subscribing to the different journals for
the users. The fund flow of the library must be seamless to maintain the good
academic environment and also cater the need of the users with current and
up-to-date resources as the main aim of the library is to satisfy their users needs.
The modern day users want their documents to be in multiple formats, mostly
electronic with remote access of the documents. The age old concept of printed
book is accompanying with electronic documents and modern ICT enabled library
services has to serve with the users to sustain in the modern IT trends with
the recession. However, since last several years, the fund flow towards library
has slowed down and the library administration has to face several difficulties
in accommodating the services within that fund. As the Govt. funding is drying
up gradually and UGC as well as University has no proper guidelines for yearly
growth of collection development policy, minimum library services, the
libraries must trace out ways to self-financing techniques to keep the services
smooth running. Its need to be kept in mind that it is not advisable to stop
users’ services for the want of funds. Therefore, the only option left is to
mobilise existing library resources and up to date services with some revenue
generation concept.
The university library
derives funds through the university whose sources of financial support is
government grants, student fees, private contributions and gifts, endowments,
etc. The main and major part of source of funds is government grants and
student fees, which account for about 90% of the total revenue of each
university. The Govt of India as per its new IT and Academic policy emphasis
more on e-resources subscription via consortia mode and too open access. The
Cost vs Access analysis of the university libraries is not convincing due to
various reasons need to study in other ways. But as the major fault planning is not
comprehensive and in consortia mode the diversified resources are not properly
used.
2.
Literature
search:
Resource mobilization
is one of
the important activities that will
enable libraries to
effectively utilize the available
resources for effective provision of library and
information service. ( Jilovsky, 2001)
The need to serve more and
diverse functions has often brought pressure upon libraries and librarians to
become more efficient and to find additional resources. The growing importance
of fund-raising in libraries is evidenced by the increasing number of
professional positions on library staff as well as development staff in
academic institutions that are devoted to library fund-raising. (Burlingame,
1994)
Universities organize their
fund-raising efforts in three basic ways—centralized, decentralized, and a
combination of the two. The centralized development structure plans and
executes the university’s fund-raising efforts from one office. Professional
fund-raisers report directly to and are paid for by that office although they
may work for one or more colleges, including the library. Decentralized development
consists of constituent fundraisers who work in and report directly to a
college or unit. They are hired and funded by the college or unit. At most
public universities combinations of centralized and decentralized are the norm,
with more decentralization emerging as the expectations and intensity of
fundraising increases. (Dewey, 2006)
Basically, resource
mobilization means-exhausting potential sources of assistance to finance a
project or an activity. It is a process of developing, generating, and managing
funds, information, goods, services, people and institutions to provide support
to certain development. Proper and efficient resource generation strategies are
essential and prerequisites to the development of library resource mobilization
strategies. Resource mobilization is an entirely different set of functions
that requires a different set of skills and capacities which college library
must put effort on capacity building activities for its concerned officials and
its library personnel. (Joute, 2014)
3.
Conventional Sources of Fund:
3.1.
Parent body:
Funds received from the university budget form an important source of revenue
for the libraries. In general, the library will not be concerned with the
sources of university income, since it will receive the greater part of its own
income from the university itself The University libraries get financial
support from the universities out of their own funds and this fluids may be
made directly to the library. UGC since its inception recognized the importance
of University libraries and gave top priority for their development in the Five
Year Plans. Besides providing financial assistance for books, building etc it
provide leadership and forum for planning, discussion and action. (Patil, 2011)
3.2.
Library fee: Libraries
usually render their services on a non-profit basis. It is debatable that
libraries can charge for their services, as charge on traditional services may
deter use of library. Any fund generation from fee-based services is only
restricted to only new services and the fund so generated should be considered
as a supplementary fund. Normally, such (limited) funds are added to the
general fund of the parent organisation for allocation through normal budgeting
procedure.
3.3.
Overdue fines:
This is always a regular source of funds. Though imposing fine on users
sometimes objectionable, but this is also mandatory to maintain the regular
book in-out and book circulation and access to maximum users. However, nominal
overdue charges (library fine), recovery charges for not returned books and
charges for duplicate cards, etc. are well accepted in most circumstances.
4.
Non-Conventional mode of earning:
It is not a very easy task
to supplement the regular income source with an additional mobilised fund. The
planning and execution must be very accurate and with proper vision. Initially,
any new system will face objection from the system and the librarian has to
take the challenge. Once the authority get convinced with the system of inflow
of funds, the image of the Library & Librarian will grow eventually. The
following are few prospects where a modern day university library may earn
additional sum of money along with regular endowment fund from parent
organisation.
4.1.
Advanced Academic Service: The University library may offer some information
service, referencing service, notes for the examination on payment basis for
its students, faculty members or off campus academicians. The research scholars
and faculty members are regular in need of such services and the library may out
of the course of regular service may plan to start such services for the user
and even extended to affiliated colleges and nearby academic institutes. The
Printing and Photocopying services may be made available in the library, which
in turn helps the library to generate some funds. The most important thing is
that, this source is regular and also raise the status of the library in terms
of service delivery. Increased use of a particular service and changed need
among users provide clue for new services. Hence the primary motive of
fee-based new services should not be generating profit or fund but gaining
these intangible benefits.
4.2.
Academic Program in distance learning mode: Library may offer some of the very popular
professional courses like PGDLAN, PGDLIM under Distance Education, with
practical exposure to Library Automation Practice. In India, only a few
universities offer such courses viz University of Hyderabad, Punjab University,
IGNOU, TISS, Mumbai etc. The courses are one year duration (two semesters). In
most of the universities, the courses are run by Central Library where Dept of
LIS does not exist (UOH). Library may also offer Certificate, Diploma in
Library Science. The advantage of these courses is that the students can learn
. Even, the library can offer training for NET/Set examination on payment
basis.
4.3.
Short term Training Courses: Library may organise short term training courses on
Library Management, Open Source Library Software (Digital Library Softwares, Library
management software, CMS, OJS etc ). These types of programs are a good source
for fund where expenditure is limited for organising the program. The central
library may plan a year-long schedule. For this purpose, the hostel facility
may be offered during vacations. These courses are very popular and are a good
source of revenue. The Library may show the implementation steps to the
participants and also practical knowledge will be imparted. The training of
library staff who do not have basic library science background may also be organised
by offering them to learn the library operations as hands on practice at
university libraries. Inflibnet, Niscair etc are regularly offering library
related courses.
4.4.
Library Consultancy: The central Library may
start paid consultancy for other libraries regarding library building planning,
starting a new service, library automation, designing and establishing digital
library, in-house training for library staff etc. This can became the major
source of income for a librarian as well as the parent organisation. Even NAAC,
NIRF, UGC also offers credit to the library & library staff offering
consultancy service. The private service providers are earning huge money
offering technical support services. Similarly, University libraries can also
offer such payment based services to affiliated college library and other
community libraries of the locality. In India NISCAIR, DELNET etc are offering
such services and earning a handsome amount through this process. The library
officers / senior professionals may also be deputed for conducting training at
various academic institutes, affiliated colleges etc to train their library
staff.
4.5.
Digital archive for affiliated colleges: Most of the universities have digital library hosted
in their servers. In this way, the digital library of affiliated colleges,
private academic institutes can be hosted at University Library IDR Server
(Dspace) with annual payment basis. Most of the colleges do not have sufficient
funds and staff to establish and maintain their own repository. The space can
be offered on lease [cloud services] which can be a major source of funds. The
annual maintenance fee will also be an additional funding source. Even the
Web-OPAC of colleges can also be hosted by Central Library.
4.6.
Special Library Membership: University Library
in intended to cater the regular users of that university including Staff,
Student & Scholars. Generally, a university library offers complimentary
access to other outside academicians for 1-2 days as a casual visitor. But, for
prolonged and dedicated use of the library, associate membership for off campus
academicians against payment of membership fee. A good number of visitors
including faculty members and research scholars from other universities visit
the university library regular basis to access the resources. Individual and
Institutional membership may be offered.The paid access of subscribed
E-resources can also be offered on hourly / per download basis along with
printing facility.
4.7.
Selling bibliographic Data: The library book database [available in online
format] for local language books can be sold, as database for Indian Languages
etc books are not readily available. The library data entry for retrospective
conversion or regular database update is a huge task and in a college libraries
it's to be done by the librarian himself The central library can even think of
establishing an Z39.5 server for union catalogue of Libraries.
4.8.
Selling old items: These is a good number of books available in our library, which are
no longer being used by students due to out of syllabus or old edition. They
may have been categorised as Passive Collection and later may be weeded out
following the Govt norms. The library may plan to sell them at reduced cost to
the general public and other libraries. IIT s are practising such procedure.
Old newspaper, waste paper selling also gets little amount of fund.
5.
Conclusions:
Our prime duty is to provide
services to the users. No doubt, regular budget flow is a major force for
libraries to be run, but librarians also has to find ways to help the
organisation also to manage the lowered rate of fund flow. The above points are
just a guideline. The points to be analysed properly and feasibility study to
be done before implementation. Long term planning is required and proper
promotion/Advertisement is required for successful and quality output.
Fee-based new services are
not only required to be carefully and strategically planned, avoiding
duplicating local services or competing with other local information systems
but also promoted with appropriate marketing methods. Pricing of these services
is a tricky issue as professional research time, local interlibrary loan and
document copying, verification of citation information, translation and other
documentation services, copyright charges, taxes and tariffs, staff time, etc.,
are involved. In addition to extensive marketing and pricing structure, care
should be taken not to violate lease agreements, licenses and copyright
restrictions, service tax, etc.
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Date of Publish: 05-06-2020