Finding the right balance: Campus involvement in the collections allocation process

Many libraries have sought the best approach to allocating the collections budget. “History plus increment” is the standard for many libraries in the allocation of any new dollars to collections budgets. Other libraries have identified factors that help make the process of disbursing new money more objective including counts of faculty and students, literature size and costs, and program changes on campus. The Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is striving toward a more open and understandable allocation process that uses an allocation formula, professional judgment of its librarians, and input from campus faculty and administration. Through this process, we work to achieve balance between formula and professional judgment, between decisions made outside the Library and within the Library, between competing disciplines and old and emerging fields for budget dollars.