The Grant That Lapses on 31 March: Allocating a Shrinking Library Budget
The library of an inter college has 3,100 volumes and 540 registered members - about 480 students, 45 teachers and 15 non-teaching staff. The annual library grant is ₹85,000. In past years ₹60,000 went to 34 magazine and newspaper subscriptions and ₹25,000 to books. This year the subscription agency's renewal list is 18 per cent higher: renewing all 34 would cost ₹70,800 and leave ₹14,200 for books, while the principal has already promised the Hindi department ₹20,000 of new titles. Circulation records show that 11 of the 34 periodicals were consulted fewer than 10 times during the whole year, while two science magazines and one employment weekly were each consulted more than 200 times. There are 240 obsolete textbooks in the stacks. A neighbouring degree college has offered 300 used books as a donation. The library committee meets next week and the unspent grant lapses on 31 March.
1. Prepare a reasoned allocation of the ₹85,000 and show the criterion you used, with arithmetic.
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Criterion: cost per consultation, not equality of cut. A ₹2,500 science magazine used 200 times costs about ₹12.50 a consultation; a ₹1,200 magazine used 4 times costs about ₹300. Cutting the second one protects the first.
Arithmetic. 34 subscriptions at ₹70,800 gives an average of about ₹2,080 each. Cancelling the 11 titles consulted fewer than 10 times saves roughly ₹20,000-23,000 depending on which are cheap newspapers and which are glossies; take ₹21,000 as the working figure.
Proposed allocation:
- Periodicals: 23 titles at about ₹49,800, retaining all three high-use titles without question.
- Books: ₹35,200, which includes the ₹20,000 promised to Hindi and ₹15,200 for science, vocational trades and examination material.
- Nil for new furniture or equipment this year; the grant is a book grant and diverting it would be indefensible at audit.
Before accepting the 18 per cent rise: ask the agency for a title-wise quotation and compare with direct publisher rates and institutional rates - agency commission is often 10 per cent or more. Also check for duplicate newspapers between the reading room and the staff room, and for titles available free online.
Timing. Orders must be placed by mid-February so that supply, receipt and bills all fall before 31 March. A bill dated in April is not a charge on this year's grant; state this in writing to the principal now, not in the last week of March, and seek written permission for any reappropriation between heads before spending.
2. How will you handle the 300 donated books and the 240 obsolete textbooks, with numbers and records?
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The donation: accept conditionally, in writing. I would tell the college that the library will take the books after inspection. Experience says about a third survive: expect roughly 100 kept, the rest returned - multiple copies already held, guides for examinations that no longer exist, brittle or mouldy volumes, and textbooks for a syllabus withdrawn years ago. Every kept item is accessioned, stamped, classified and shelved like a purchase; nothing is added to the shelves unaccessioned, because unaccessioned stock is invisible at stock verification and is the standard route by which books disappear.
The 240 textbooks: weed on stated criteria, not on age alone. Criteria: withdrawn from the current syllabus; superseded edition of a title still in demand (replace, do not simply discard); damaged beyond repair; duplicate copies beyond the number in use; and no consultation recorded for three years. A textbook still on the syllabus stays on the shelf however old it looks.
Procedure. Prepare a withdrawal list with accession number, title and reason; obtain the library committee's recommendation and the principal's written sanction before anything leaves the shelf; then write 'withdrawn, date, reason, authority' against each accession number in the register - never erase the entry. Offer usable withdrawn copies to students at a nominal price or to a municipal reading room; send the genuinely unusable to the raddiwala and credit the proceeds to the library fund with a receipt. The register, the sanction order and the disposal receipt together are the audit trail.
3. The principal says the committee meets only to approve, and that data tables are a waste of time. What do you put before the committee and why?
Read the worked answer
I would still put one page, because the committee's sanction is the librarian's protection later, when a cancelled magazine is complained about or a withdrawal is questioned. But it is one page, not a report.
Page contents:
- A periodical table: title, annual cost, consultations in the year, cost per consultation, recommendation (retain or cancel). Thirty-four rows fit on one side. The 11 lowest rows make the case without argument.
- A one-line financial statement: grant received, committed, balance, date by which it must be spent.
- Two decisions requested in writing: approval of the cancellation list, and approval of a short periodicals selection policy - new titles start on a one-year trial, use is counted, renewal is on evidence. That policy is what stops the same argument recurring every March.
- The withdrawal list for the 240 textbooks, with reasons, as a separate annexure.
Why: a committee that is shown cost per use is being asked to judge a method it can check; a committee that is shown nothing can only judge by who complains loudest. The minute recording the decision is also the answer to any later objection, and it converts the librarian's judgement into an institutional decision, which is where it belongs.