"Have been trying to balance the budget for the Reference Library today, an impossible task as before I got to managing this budget somebody transferred the newspapers and periodicals to this heading, without the funds. Of course it is now impossible to rid ourselves of this, and unless any shortfall comes out of the ref book fund we are stumped. That said ref book fund is also covering overspend on microfilming, which goes up every year in cost, but budget gets reduced proportionally; and on-line services for which there was never a budget in the first place, but there is increasing demand for such.
"Effectively the ref book fund is down to not very much at all of which half, I kid you not, is spent on Halsbury’s which no one ever uses. Head of Service tells me Halsbury’s is an essential reference tool, and therefore I can’t cancel it. Thus we have just about enough and falling to buy a few Whitaker’s Almanacs, a couple of Wisden’s and not a lot else!"
Some things are the same the whole world over.
3 comments:
Now, there's a familiar tale! We stopped Halsbury's last year but have yet to remove the volumes from the shelves. (Yes, I know...)
And today we decided to cancel the sub for The Times on microfilm. After all, we have the online archive and Newsbank.
Slowly, year by year, the budget is coming under control...
Halsbury's....lawyers have their own, serious students use the University Library. Probably only vexatious litigants go the Public Library, so stopping subscription would be doubly beneficial!
Chris: You astonish me, I can only imagine the reference librarian's MIA or distracted!
Affer: as many would confirm, what's on the reference library shelves isn't about what anyone might use...
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