Lister Hill Letter
Newsletter of the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences at UAB

July/August 2001

Lister Hill Library Budget Snapshot

The total economy of the Lister Hill Library is currently just over $4,000,000.  The charts below present a snapshot of where the funds come from, and the broad categories over which they are expended.

Expenses
Figure 1 shows the expense pattern.  This is typical for academic health science center libraries, according to the annual statistics of the Association of Academic Health Science Libraries.  That is, these libraries typically spend about half of their budget on personnel and benefits, between 35% and 40% and materials, with the remainder being accounted for by supplies, phones, computer expenses, staff development activities and the like.

Income
Figure 2 shows where the money comes from.  The majority of LHL's funding comes from the state allocation, supplemented by a direct transfer from the health sciences schools and a negotiated amount from the hospital.  The funds provided by the President clearly make a significant difference.

The amount shown in Figure 2 as "generated income" is derived primarily from service centers, particularly photocopy delivery and self-service photocopy.  Since these services are operated on a cost-recovery basis, the revenue is not available for other library services.  As noted above, the funds from the President's Discretionary Fund are one-time allocation and there can be no guarantee that they will continue in the future.  Removing these amounts (Figure 3) gives a clearer picture of how dependent Lister Hill Library is on the allocation from the state.