Speaker: Gayle Baker, University of Tennessee – Knoxville
Phase one: Demonstrate the role of the library information in generating research grand incomes for the institution (i.e. the university spends X amount of money on the library which generates X amount of money in grant research and support).
To do this, they sent out emails to faculty with surveys that included incentives to respond (quantitative and qualitative questions). They gathered university-supplied data about grant proposals and income, and included library budget information. They also interviewed administrators to get a better picture of the priorities of the university.
UIUC’s model: Faculty with grant proposals using the library times the percentage of award success rate times the average grant income, then multiplied that by the grants expended and divided by the total library budget. The end result was that the model showed $4.38 grant income for every dollar invested in the library.
Phase two: Started by testing UIUC’s methodology across eight institutions in eight countries. Speaker didn’t elaborate, but went on to describe the survey they used and examples of survey responses. Interesting, but hard to convey relevance in this format, particularly since it’s so dependent on individual institutions. (On the up side, she has amusing anecdotes.) They used the ROI formula suggested by Carol Tenopir, which is slightly different than described above.
Phase three: IMLS grant for the next three years, headed by Tenopir and Paula Kaufman, and ARL and Syracuse will also be involved. They are trying to put a dollar value on things that are hard to do, such as student retention and success.
