Thank you to everyone who replied. Summary is below.
Janet
Janet Fischer
Acquisitions/Government Documents Librarian
Golden Gate University Law Library
536 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
phone: 415-442-7826
fax: 415-512-9395
email: jfischer@ggu.edu
http://www.ggu.edu/lawlibrary
>>> "Janet Fischer" <jfischer@ggu.edu> 4/26/2006 11:08 AM >>>
At the risk of looking like an idiot, I'm looking for a "quick" method to place a value on an academic collection for insurance purposes. ( I did search the archives and didn't find a recent discussion.) I've looked at "Legal Informatoin Buyer's Guide", searched the AALL and the ARL sites, and of course did a google search.
Basically, I'm looking for an average $ per volume. I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I can't find it. Any ideas? I will summarize for the list if there is interest.
Janet
1.I just attended a library disaster planning workshop in Raleigh NC.
There was a wonderful presenter by the name of Jeanne Drewes, from the Michigan State University. (www.lib.msu.edu/drewes) Her site has some information, and during her presentation she mentioned valuation
information at the YBP site (Yankee Book Peddler) www.ybp.com
2. Copied and sent from a prior discussion:
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)
Don't know whether this information has already been offered. Two sources
our library frequently refers to when faced with this question:
1. Insurance manual for libraries by Gerald E. Myers. ALA 1977. (there may well be a later ed.?)
2. 66 LLJ 241 (1973)
3. Legal Research & Law Library Management. Rev. ed. 2004. chapter 34A "Insuring Against Library Disasters".
There was one posting about this on law lib - see e-mail entitled "Summary:
Insuring the Lib.-Valuation" from Martha Goldman on 6/19/01.
Also, there was one on law-acq entitled "Valuing a Library" from Susan von
Schrader on 8/28/01.
I have a flyer from Hein indicating that they have an appraisal service
through their Second Hand Book Department (800-496-4346).
There is an interesting article in Library Journal, June 15, 2001 p. 48 by
Thomas Hennen, "Do You Know the Real Value of Your Library". While it
doesn't go into specifics about the valuation, it does discuss new
accounting rules, GASB 34, which are prompting many public libraries to
value their collections. There may be more discussion about valuation
techniques in the general library literature in response to these new
rules.
We had our collection evaluated by an insurance consultant. He's well
recognized in the Toronto area. Although he did come in to the library to
look at the collection, he may be able to assist you over the phone with a
few quick numbers.
He can be contacted:
Law Library Insurance & Market Evaluations
Ken Barnett
905-426-2842
About 2 years ago, we valued our library collections. While the reason was
not disclosed, I suspected the new GASB standards.
Some took the replacement cost for each title at used market prices, some
an average dollar cost per volume multiplied by the number of volumes, and
some took recent publisher information per title.
I found Claitor's online is a good source for used book collections.
Historical out-of-print material was much more difficult to locate and to
estimate.
Our library lost about 175,000 volumes in Tropical Storm Allison in 2001.
FEMA 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.
We had our library appraised in 2001 when it was donated to a university
library (it was not appraised for insurance purposes, which I believe is
somewhat different). At that time we hired an appraiser who spent about a
week onsite and considerable time at his office to value the collection.
We found some appraisers through the American Society of Appraisers. There
was a way to search the web site to identify appraisers of books. Perhaps
there is also some background information on the website or the web sites
of some of the appraisers on their methods of appraising collections.
I haven't done it for years but I came up with an average cost per volumes
and multiplied it by the number of volumes in the collection.
3. I found it frustrating that apparently archivist/special collections
cannot value and had to go to a professional association of appraisers
for one doing books to get a price for a special collection. (Google or
go to Ency. of associations?)
4. I have recently started looking for the same information. Here are some
of the resources I've come across:
ARL - SPEC Kit 272
Insuring and Valuing Research Library Collections, December 2002
http://www.arl.org/spec/272sum.html
Executive Summary, not for law libraries
Blair Kauffman post on law-lib:
http://lawlibrary.ucdavis.edu/LAWLIB/mar92/0030.html
Suggested Values for Jan. 1, 2006 - Law Libraries:
http://www.osbar.org/_docs/resources/libraryvalues06.pdf
This is from Oregon but it also includes a number of national titles.
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