Hot off the press! Measuring Your Library’s Value: How to do a Cost-Benefit Analysis for Your Public Library

When former director of the St. Louis Public Library, Glen Holt, pitched me the idea of a book that will help a library prove its value to its community, politicians, the media—I thought, “Bring it on.” I don’t know about you, but I rarely open a library publication anymore without some talk of threatened branch closings, scaling back of hours, staff layoffs.

The beauty of the method Holt and his coauthors, Leslie Holt, Donald Elliott and Sterling Hayden lay out is that it gives libraries the language that will make those who hold the pursestrings take notice: dollars. As in a great sound bite: for every dollar of tax money going toward the library, the taxpayer is getting three dollars of benefit.

Undertaking a cost-benefit analysis sounds like a huge undertaking…and it is…but the authors break it down into doable, understandable steps. They walk readers through all the steps involved: identifying and sampling library users to determine benefits, developing a survey instrument, determining library costs, measuring return to taxpayers and donors, communicating findings. Funded by grants from PLA and IMLS, the team field-tested the method first at large libraries throughout the country, then small and medium sized libraries.

In addition to seeking additional funding, libraries in the IMLS test used their CBA results in other ways: Determining which materials and services provided the greatest streams of benefits and reallocating resources accordingly in subsequent years. Showing how the library was balancing traditional materials and services with new innovations: staff and users could see how the library was adapting to changes in technology and customer service desires. Raising staff morale and increasing funds to invest in staff…the library’s greatest resource.