Oxford University Library Services revealed in last week’s Annual Report that they had a budget deficit of over £2.5 million for the year 2008-9, surpassing the previous year’s overspend by £1,000.
Their overall income, of £31,756,183, provided mainly by a block grant from the University, fell far short of their expenditure of £34,292,288.
The report admitted that “For some time the Libraries have laboured under a deficit, with insufficient revenue to cover the costs of their services”. It also reiterated the vital importance of donations in covering the shortfall not met by the University’s grant of over £21 million.
However, the report also stated that the actual overspend of £2.54 million was less than the forecast £2.6 million, indicating the success of the “number of efficiencies and innovations to reduce expenditure” implemented by staff.
By far the largest expense is staffing, which eats up £18.8m of the annual budget. With a total of 562 staff in July, this amounts to an average wage of £33,396 per member of staff.
The section whose expenditure has increased by the largest proportion is Information Provision and Access, which saw an increase from £4,348,746 for 2007-8 to £6,083,212 for the previous year.
Much of the increased expenditure has arisen from the drive to go digital, with the Library Services dedicating £4.4 million on acquiring electronic resources and back copies. These include the historical archives of the Guardian/Observer newspapers and the London Illustrated News, as well as resources such as ‘Cambridge Histories Online’ and the ‘Universal Database of Russian Military and Security Periodicals’.
Among other online successes in the previous year has been the introduction of SOLO, enabling users to search a database of almost all University and College libraries, and the upgrade to OXLIP+, which allows remote access to the library catalogues. Downloads of online journal articles have almost doubled since 2005-6, rising from 3.3 million to 6.1 million, the Libraries have invested in an increasingly popular method of research.
Other activities reported to have been undertaken by the Libraries in the past year are over 1000 document restoration projects, several exhibitions – including those for the Magna Carta and World Book Day – and the processing of what the report names “arguably the most significant modern literary archive to come to the Bodleian Library in thirty years”, the Alan Bennett archive.
An expense conspicuously absent from the report was the cost to the libraries of books stolen or lost by borrowers. As any student who has used SOLO, the University’s online search catalogue, will know some books are consigned to the ambiguous fate of “Lost, presumed missing”, but it is unknown how much these lost texts cost the libraries to replace each year.
The report mentions the implementation of “book detection systems” in the Old Bodleian Library throughout 2009, implying that there are some concerns over the security of the texts available on open access shelves.
It has been suggested that the cost of lost and missing books is incorporated into the category of “Operational Expenditure”, which totalled over £8.8 million, a figure which could potentially be reduced – therefore tackling part of the total budget deficit – if tighter security measures were enforced.
A member of staff at Library Services stated that the cost of replacing any missing books would fall on the individual faculties and come out of their general budget for purchasing new materials.
The representative went on to explain that although problems can arise when the lost books are now out of print, the overall cost of this issue to the Libraries is relatively low compared to the total expenditure.
However, the report forecasts a more positive financial outlook for the Libraries over the coming years, stating the Services’ trust in the University which “proposes to resolve the issue from 2010–11 when a new services funding mechanism will be introduced”, despite the likelihood that the Libraries of Oxford will be receiving less University funding in the coming years.
A footnote of the report suggests that the Libraries will potentially be required to cut their reliance on the block grant by 10% over the next three years, although this is not yet confirmed.
Nonetheless, the Library Services remain optimistic, highlighting their focus on “strategic priorities” to maintain financial equilibrium over the coming years.
