Studying the Cost and Value of Library and Information Services: Applying Functional Cost Analysis to the Library in Transition

Library managers must respond to institutional demands for the justification of maintaining or supplementing resources and services. The difficulty of assigning costs and values to library and information services and resources is magnified by the advent of a broad variety of computerized and electronic modes of library service. This article provides a general discussion of the issues relating to costs of library and information services in the library in transition, reviews the functional cost analysis method, and presents selected data gathered from a larger study on the costs and value of various library services. The results of applying functional cost analysis to reference service show great variation in unit costs, within and across libraries, indicating that there are substantial challenges remaining in determining the sources of these variations, and in understanding the cost basis of library services.