You Know Bookmobile Service Is Worth It - Make Your Director and Board Believe It Too

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You Know Bookmobile Service Is Worth It - Make
Your Director and Board Believe It Too

• Patti Stevic, Wayne County Public Library
• Wooster, Ohio
• Paul Ward, Tippecanoe County Public Library
• Lafayette, Indiana
• Jimmie Epling, Wayne County Public Library
• Wooster, Ohio

ABOS Conference October 13-15, 2011
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You know you are a bookmobiler when you hear
When I was a child I remember You are my link to
the world You helped me out by You came to my
door with
Outreach services do not stop at 5 p.m.!
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You know you are a bookmobiler when you hear
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Stand Up If..

• You are actively involved in Bookmobile/Outreach
• and love your job!

Remain Standing If..
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Remain Standing If..
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Reality Check
Do you know how your communitys movers and
shakers measure success?
Warm and fuzzy stories vs. how much will it cost
and what will be the benefit? With an
economic downturn and a tight budget?
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The hard fact

• a well crafted comparison of dollar costs and
  dollar benefits may leave a more lasting impact
  on a conservative audience of library
  administrators, Board members, government
  officials, business leaders, or donors than pages
  of statistics on number of items circulated,
  total visitors, or multiple anecdotes about
  children and elderly you serve on the bookmobile.

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What is Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA)?

• Economic techniques that measure and compare the
  monetary value of benefits from a good, service,
  or activity to the cost of the good, service or
  activity in policy analysis, a formal way of
  measuring the benefits of alternative
  public-sector options relative to the cost of
  those options.

Elliott, Donald S et al.. Measuring Your
Librarys Value How to Do a Cost-Benefit
Analysis for Your Public Library. Chicago
American Library Association, 2007. Print.
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CBA according to Wikipedia

• economic decision-making approach, used
  particularly in government and business,
• used in the assessment of whether a proposed
  project, program or policy is worth doing, or to
  choose between several alternative ones
• involves comparing the total expected costs of
  each option against the total expected benefits,
  to see whether the benefits outweigh the costs,
  and by how much

Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Cost-Benefit
Analysis. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 16
Aug. 2011. Web. 17 Aug. 2011. lthttp//en.wikipedia
.orggt
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What should be included in a CBA?
Initial Cost Operating Costs
Staffing Requirements/ Hours of Operation Shelving Capacity
Circulation per Patron Base Longevity of Facility
Service Area Marketing Potential
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How do I perform a CBA analysis?

• Define specified time period for analysis.
• Make numerical summaries of costs for items being
  evaluated (ie. Utilities, hours of required
  staff, number of patrons, years of service for
  item, etc.).
• Analyze numbers pairing a cost with a benefit.
• Write an unbiased narrative summary.

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Numerical Summary
Cost

• Building
• Construction 904,625
• Furniture/Equip. 89,500
• Other Costs 96,068
• Total Costs 1,090,193

• Buying
• Purchase 205,000
• Furniture/Equip. 15,000
• Other Costs
• Total Costs 220,000

Benefit

• 50 Years

• 17.5 Years

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Analysis of Numbers

• Annual Cost of Building 21,803.86
• 1,090,193 / 50 21,803.86
• Annual Cost of Buying 12,571.43
• 220,000 / 17.5 12,571.43

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Narrative Summary

• Facts to include in summary
• In 10 years, building will be in need of minor
  repairs (carpeting, painting, etc).
• In 20 years, building will be in need of major
  repairs (roofing, major moves-not expansion,
  etc.).
• In 17.5 years, vehicle will need replaced and is
  likely that annual cost will go up.

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How do you use what you collect to have an
impact?
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Remember that hard fact?

• a well crafted comparison of dollar costs and
  dollar benefits may leave a more lasting impact
  on a conservative audience of library
  administrators, Board members, government
  officials, business leaders, or donors than pages
  of statistics on number of items circulated,
  total visitors, or multiple anecdotes about
  children and elderly you serve on the bookmobile.

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Keep in mind

• How much will it cost and what will be the
  benefit?
• Who will benefit?

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When telling your Return on Investment story

• stick to measuring direct costs, not indirect
  costs
• your results must be reasonable
• your results must be defendable
• your estimated costs must be conservative
• your target audience for the results, the
• Director and the Board

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Establishing your value

• cost relevant to other locations
• materials supplies
• maintenance staffing
• circulation relevant to fixed branches
• circulation per square foot
• cost per square foot
• cost per circulation
• cost per visitor

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Individual Customer Library Use Value Calculator
Cleveland Heights-University Heights (OH) Public
Library http//www.heightslibrary.org/page/library
_use_calculator
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Return on Investment (ROI) Study Results
Wayne County Public Library 4.31 for every 1
invested
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The Problem with System Wide Study Results
The Library profession has tended to lump classy
libraries that make good use of their money to
serve the needs of their constituencies with
those that are strikingly mediocre or even
worse. Elliott, Donald.
Measuring Your Librarys Value. 2007. P. 6.
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Communicating the Value of Your Library to Your
Director and Board

• Sound bites
• Press release
• Brochure
• Fact sheet
• Presentations

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Observations and Questions

• Patti Stevic pstevic_at_wcpl.info
• Paul Ward pward_at_tcpl.lib.in.us
• Jimmie Epling jepling_at_wcpl.info