Thanks so much for your responses and the suggestions. Actually I did a
brief survey on this from some of law firm librarians in Malaysia. Majority
are not directly involved in the insurance process but some of us have a
peculiar request from the insurance companies asking us to provide the
details of actual price of the individual books. I have a hard time to dig
my record on this. Some firms regarded library books as a fix asset which
the value of the books will be depreciated each year. I think this will make
our task more tedious. For your interest, I would like to share some of the
responses and suggestions that I have received below.
Thanks & cheer
Noordin
_________________________________________________________
Nordin there is one book on 'Disaster management for libraries and
archives' by Graham Mattews and John Feather published by Ashgate, 2003.
Could be useful for consideration in yourplanning.
nuraini [nuraini@iiu.edu.my]
___________________________________________________________
I had to come up with a method for evaluating our collection earlier this
year and found a number of resources that were helpful. There are some
law-lib postings on topic (going back as far as 1992!) that suggest
different methods of estimating value, but the one that seemed to come up
most often was simply multiplying your volume count by the average current
cost per volume. We all know what "average cost" of a law book is right!
There are two summaries of accounting methods from different libraries in a
12/09/93 law lib post from Jacqueline S. Wright, and in a 6/19/01 post from
Martha Goldman. These can both be found in the archive. Our school decided,
as a quick and dirty method of accounting, to take the total budget for the
last year for books added to the collection, and divide it by the number of
books added to the collection.
the formula looks something like this:
Total book budget last year / # books added last year = average cost per
book
average cost per book * # volumes in collection = estimated value of
collection.
Some other considerations were whether we should add our total supplements
and subscriptions budget, for insurance purposes, because these were
renewing costs every year and whether we should add some cost for processing
(i.e. staff time to order, catalog, shelve etc.) as these would also be
costs associated with replacing the collection.
Our accountants and auditors approved this method, but the school is still
considering hiring an outside company to do a formal appraisal of the
collection at some point in the future.
In addition to the resources listed in Mike Miller's posting, we consulted:
Do You Know the Real Value of Your Library? by Thomas J. Hennen Jr., Library
Journal, June 15, 2001, p.48-50.
Appraisals: a simple tool to protect you and your "bottom line" by David P.
Thorpe, Bottom Line 10, no.1 (1997) p.11-15
Assets and Depreciation or. Only an Accountant Would Claim Books Lose Value,
by Herbert Snyder, Library Administration and Management v.12 no.4 p.226-229
(Fall 98)
Hope this helps, and saves someone else some valuable time when this
question comes up.
Kathryn
Kathryn McTigue-Floyd
Library Director
San Joaquin College of Law
901 5th St.
Clovis, CA 93612
(559) 323-2100
(559) 323-5566 (fax)
________________________________________________________
Please post them to the list. Thanks!
Judy Cole, Law Librarian
Hillsborough County Attorney's Office
601 E. Kennedy Blvd., 27th Fl.
Tampa, FL 33602
Tel: 813-272-5673, Ext. 126
Fax: 813-272-5758
_______________________________________________________________
I have used $10.00 per volume in the past. Looseleaf volumes aren't worth
anything. Used book dealers send out their catalogs periodically, you might
look in there for market value. If the Insurance Company is insuring for
replacement cost, you may even get the retail price for the newer volumes.
Jim Rollins
Meserve, Mumper & Hughes
300 S. Grand Ave, 24th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90071
____________________________________________________________
Hi Shaikh,
I think you need to be aware of any time that the librarians and staff have
invested in the book. For example, to replace a copy of a book from your
library might require ordering, processing, cataloging, etc. All of these
value added aspects that have been applied to a book need to be accounted
for. You might be able to order a bunch of books from a company but w/out
classification and other attention, they are not as valuable as the books
they are replacing. I guess the short of it is to value the time put into
the materials as well as the materials themselves.
Best,
Rick
Apgood, Richard [Richard.Apgood@wilmerhale.com]
__________________________________________
Our library lost about 175,000 volumes in Tropical Storm Allison in 2001.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency agreed to the estimate of $100 per
volume for half of the collection and $150 per volume for the other half.
In addition, they agreed to $90 per volume for processing, giving us a total
of $215 per volume average cost. FEMA's awards to us were based on these
figures, which were suggested by their own expert at the Law Library of
Congress. Our total awards came to over $40 million, which we spent a bit
more economically than the award indicates. Nevertheless, I suggest that
you set an average value per book. Be careful not to underestimate your
cost, and keep in mind that our replacement costs, incurred in 2001, are now
considerably higher than they were three years ago. Once you set a
per-volume valuation, then figure out what portion of your collection you
really want to insure. Of course you have seen plenty of books free for the
cost of postage, and you should make a best estimate of what you would
really buy if your collection disappeared. Also, keep in mind that most
disasters do not wipe out the whole collection, and factor that into your
plan.
Jon S. Schultz
Professor of Law
University of Houston Law Center
My library disaster website: http://themasterofdisaster.com
Best wishes
Shaikh Mohamed Noordin
Librarian
Tay & Partners
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Agents | Registered Industrial Design Agents
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nordin@taypartners.com.my
www.taypartners.com.my
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