NEW CHALLENGES FOR LIBRARY ACQUISITIONS

Current financial reporting practices for library expenditures generally exclude costs/services which are "contributed" to the library from beyond its budget by other units within the larger parent institution (whether it be a city, school or university). This article reports a specific cost case study analysis of a particular university library, detailing the costs of providing library services to users. A "full cost" discussion would need to include several non-expenditure costs. This report does briefly describe such economic cost categories but the specific case addresses only financial accounting costs. The categories, and techniques of analysis as well as resulting observations, are applicable for any manager seeking the most realistic detailing of the costs incurred in operating a library.