RESEARCH IN PRACTICEA FUND ALLOCATION FORMULA BASED ON DEMAND, COST, AND SUPPLY

摘要

Approximately 40 percent of academic libraries use formulas to allocate book funds among departments or subject areas [1-3]. Consequently, dozens of published articles and reports have appeared on the topic of formula-based fund allocation. (See Walters [4] for a review of the literature.) Unfortunately, every previous strategy for fund allocation requires a set of weights or allocations that can be used as a starting point; for example, fund allocation methods based on linear programming rely on the subjective assessment of each department's importance or value to the university [5-8]. Likewise, regression-based methods require a set of current, past, or hypothetical allocations from which a formula can be derived [4], This essay presents a theoretically grounded method of developing a fund allocation formula that does not rely on the initial estimation of weights or allocations. This method is likely to be especially useful for libraries that have never used fund allocation formulas-those that have no prior basis for rating the importance of particular subject areas, departments, or variables.