Hello Friends,
Thanks for your patience in waiting for the hit. Here are the responses I
received to the original question, which is at the very bottom of this post.
*****
We purchase some databases outright, we get most free for partricipating in
the state consortium,
and some we get at a reduced rate by belonging to the local independent
school library consortium
which negotiates these.
There are schools which charge students a library fee which goes toward
expenses, we do not.
*****
Have you checked with the Oklahoma State Library and the department of
education about state
programs? You know if your school charges lab fees it is rather like
charging research fees for the
library.
Our policy has been to subscribe to no database that is not usable from
studnet homes which is a PR
help.
*****
I like your idea of a specific library fee, but my experience at my
previous school was that it really didn't accomplish anything because
the administration didn't see the need for a library at all. After
several years of NO ($0.00) budget I was told that we would put a
library fee in the tuition. However, since most students got financial
aid, I got only the percent of the fee that actually came in from the
parents. If your school offers any sort of financial aid to the
students, make sure that you don't get the same reduction I got.
If you do end up going with the fee, I'd suggest that you set it a bit
higher than what you think you will actually need. That way if you don't
get all the students you planned on, or somebody doesn't pay, you won't
have to take from your book budget to pay for the databases. In fact, if
your administration agrees, you might want to just put a "library fee"
into your fee structure that could support the entire library. That
would reduce the tuition by that amount, and put it all in a fee, but
the total cost for the year wouldn't change any. The advantage of that
is that library money can't be used for other purposes. If you charge
$25.00 per student, and you have100 students, you have a budget of
$2500. If you have 200 students you have a budget of $5000.
I'd suggest you look at your state standards to see what you ought to
have. Use that to build your budget. If the amount you come up with
seems high to the administration, remind them that the public school
down the road is spending that much, and if you can't compete parents
will take their children (and their money) there.
******
Some of our databases are discounted and some are not. We do receive some
free from our Education Service Center. To get the discounted price, we have
joined a consortium that was put together by another service center (not our
area one - Texas is divided up into various region and each region has an
assigned service center through the Texas Education Agency).
******
And this is the original post:
> > Hello friends,
> >
> > I am preparing my first official library budget request and have a
> > few questions on how your research databases are funded. A search
> > of the archives revealed some good and relevant info, but not quite
> > what I need. --For independent secondary schools with a few
> > subscription online databases, do you belong to a regional
> > association of consortium that offers discounts in order to pay for
> > them? (ie: if you became a member, the Hudson Valley Library Assn.
> > offers/offered discounts for databases) --OR do you pay full price
> > for them through your regular budget? --If the former, what
> > consortium or association do you get discounts through? I can only
> > find the Oklahoma Library Association, the Oklahoma State Department
> > of Libraries and AMIGOS for my region. It's through the OK Dept. of
> > Libraries that we get our two free databases-SIRS and EBSCO.
> >
> > A co-worker here suggested adding a small, across-the-board fee to
> > tuition to cover the cost of databases. If I include all students
> > in grades 1-12, it was about $2.70 for the four new subscriptions I
> > want to purchase. I'm thinking the fee could be a way to introduce
> > the school to them, prove their relevance and necessity and then
> > gradually the budget could be increased to pay for them with no fee.
> > I'd rather just have the money available in the budget and if the
> > books in the 5-12 Library weren't so horribly out of date, I'd use
> > part of that budget to pay for it. But, I can't afford to lose money
> > from any budget line right now so I'm considering all options.
> >
> > Any help would be highly appreciated and I vow to post a HIT with
> > the results.
> >
> > Thanks a million,
> > Jennifer England
> >
> > Librarian
> > Heritage Hall School
> > Oklahoma City, OK
> > jengland@heritagehall.com
> >
Librarian
Heritage Hall School
Oklahoma City, OK
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