Determining Budgets for School Library Media Centers

There are two factors essential to collection development and management in any library or information center. The first is an explicit statement of the organization's goals. The second is the size of the materials budget—the financial resources provided to achieve the goals. Professional literature includes a profusion of information dealing with the selection process for school library media centers, but very little is available about materials budgets. A clear, practical and rational procedure needs to be developed to help school librarians determine how much funding is necessary to fulfill the school library media center's goals.