The Zombie Stack Exchanges That Just Won't Die
I have been asked to find out the most authoritative method for determining the cost value of a library collection (it is a public library, so would include books, magazines, dvds, CDs etc). Does anyone know of any models/resources that could help with this?
Kim Westcott
I don't know about an authoritative method, but I have worked in a couple of different public libraries and in both, a value was assigned to each item as it was cataloged. This amount was usually the retail cost of the item (because in a scenario where we might later have to replace the item, we cannot be assured of any discounts we might have gotten on the original purchase) plus a processing fee (as material processing adds value to the collection in terms of retrievability and longevity). While using retail numbers may seem to inflate the actual replacement costs for the specific materials (which may be replaced at a discounted rate), the actual value of a collection exceeds the value of the individual items in that it is a collection - carefully selected to be current and to cover a wide range of topics and interests - so on balance, this warrants the use of the retail price. Obviously, with prices stored in the catalog record, the total value is easily calculated by a summation.
All of this ignores the fact that a collection only has value if the public it serves finds it useful. A collection that is not circulating well may be out-of-date or out-of-touch. If your health collection in a public library has only books from the last 5 years, it is valuable. If the materials are 10 years and older, it is worthless. To truly understand the value of your collection then, you can't look at replacement cost and ignore what your circulation rates are telling you.
For general purposes your insurer should already have this information. If not, contact your state library for the numbers they recomend. Our technical library uses \$125/item. This number is a lot higher than what public libraries would be using as technical books tend to be much more difficult (time consuming and expensive) to replace. For what it is worth, I would avoid trying to value every individual item as costs tend to change over time.
Most of the time you can use industry standards. Bowkers Books in Print publishes the average costs for books every year. Adult Fiction hardcover, Non-Fiction hardcover etc. They changed their website in February and that information isn't as easily accessible. Baker and Taylor does publish something you can use.
Baker and Taylor YBP Service http://www.ybp.com/title_reports.html
In 2011, they list:
\ Fiction Hardcover: \$24.33 \ Reference: \$126.31 \ Non-Fiction:\$84.84
Couldn't find a children's category. Perhaps an email to YBP can get that answer.
Find out your collection size, then use the data and multiply the average. What you typically want to find is what it would cost if you had to replace your entire collection today. The Marc information in the book isn't always current and it is difficult to compile.