WHAT LIBRARY SERVICES REALLY COST

The current stringent economic climate requires library managers to be more systematic in cost analyses. Allocating costs to cost centers, determining costs per unit of service, and correlating costs to specific categories of users, helps ensure accurate analyses of costs, productivity, and efficiency. Along with cost analysis, assessment of service is a key component in the complete analysis, for cost and efficiency must be related to quality and effectiveness. In addition to discussing the general process of determining costs for specific library services, this article focuses on the cost center model in more detail, with a case study of the cost of a library's support for grant‐sponsored research.