Measuring outcomes: applying cost-benefit analysis to middle-sized and smaller public libraries - Public Libraries

6) Annual local taxes spent for library operations yield substantial direct benefits. Each library returns more than $1 of benefits for each $1 of annual taxes. In the first study, SLPL returned more than $2.50 in benefits per tax dollar; Baltimore County Public Library returned more than $3 in benefits per tax dollar; Birmingham Public Library returned at least $1.30 in benefits per tax dollar; Phoenix Public Library returned over $10 in benefits per tax dollar; and King County Library System returned more than $5 in benefits per tax dollar

CBA researchers do not yet have sufficient data to anticipate the benefits return for any particular library or library type in CBA II.

7) Each library studied in CBA I yielded a good annual return on invested capital. SLPL returns a minimum of 22 percent; Baltimore County Public Library returns a minimum of 72 percent; Birmingham Public Library returns a minimum of 5 percent; Phoenix Public Library returns over 150 percent; and King County Library System returns a minimum of 94 percent.

a. Shortly after completing the IMLS CBA study and before publicizing its results, Phoenix Public Library participated in a city-wide bond referendum that will expand its capital assets by 20 percent over five years. The referendum passed with more than 75 percent of voter support. The overwhelming strength of this majority confirms the public's (and cardholders') perception of the high social rate of return to the public's investment in library assets, consistent with the results of the CBA study.

b. The measurement of return on invested capital and return on annual taxpayer investment are both summarized in the seminar casebook, Libraries Are Valuable ... Prove It (Holt, Elliott, Watts, & Holt, 2000).

8) The methodology of CBA I detected differences in benefit streams flowing from different levels of investment. The CBA methodology is sufficiently fine-grained to detect differences in levels of benefits that flow from different levels of support for various areas of library activity. St. Louis Public, for example, had higher levels of benefits from children's services than did King County, which invests a lower percentage of its annual taxpayer investment in youth services. Not surprisingly, differences in cardholder subpopulations (e.g., households, teachers, business users, etc.) in different systems also affect CBA outcomes. Even without the study of library user groups like teachers and business, the CBA II researchers expect that different-sized benefits streams will flow from different levels of investment by the study-site libraries.

9) In spite of these differences in benefits streams, consistency proved to be the theme of the benefit levels of the studies, especially when calculations were made for categories of library services. In the case of all five libraries, when benefits were calculated, they did so in the following order: 1) Materials for adults, on average 35 percent; 2) staff interactions, on average 30 percent; 3) materials for children, on average 20 percent; and 4) library technology, on average 15 percent. Of these, the most problematical was technology, because comments that those surveyed made during their exchanges with interviewers often indicted that they were placing technology benefits implicitly into other categories (e.g., electronic newspaper and magazine databases were thought of as adult materials, not technology). In CBA II, the researchers expect the same consistencies as discovered in the first study.