Tag: Funding

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Funding is essential to further the vast majority of local studies priorities.

Local Studies budget

Local Studies core budget: Local Studies Librarians are normally granted budgets to run core activities, such as stock purchasing, binding and preservation. These can be divided into a number of budget lines for specific areas of activity or they can be concentrated in one local studies fund. It may give you more flexibility if separate budget lines can be amalgamated into one so if less books are published than usual during the year, the left-over money can be spent on other priorities.

Local Studies can be paid out of other library (and council) budget lines….

Other potential funds within your service:

• ICT- digitization equipment
• E-resources: subscriptions to products such as Ancestry and Find my Past. Could you argue that a new heritage website is an e-resource?
• Volunteer expenses: should that money come out of the same pot as other library volunteers?
• Seed money may also be available for projects that match the priorities of your wider service and the local authority. As is shown in the LA priorities sections of the toolkit, local studies materials are tools that can be used by other departments to further their priorities and, if they do, surely should help pay for the costs incurred.

Looking further afield for funding

If you have a large project, perhaps a donation, a group of materials or a project that needs indexing, digitizing or researching, then often the only way to progress it is by applying for special funding. In the past this may have been possible to achieve via internal funding from a council body, but this is now rare, and most funding is received externally. Sources of external funding includes:

• Crowdfunding
• Harnessing the power of volunteers
• Grants: There are many grant schemes available offering a wide range of amounts of money and up to date information is available on the government website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/libraries-applying-for-funding/potential-funding-sources-for-libraries. Digitisation company Townsweb have also provided an annual grant to help support digitisation projects.
• Friends group: If you work in an archive or record office, then you may be able to raise money through a “Friends” group, as a small voluntary organization can often access grants which a local authority cannot. These groups are less common in library settings, although you may occasionally receive a bequest which may have conditions attached as to how the money should be spent.

Making money go further

Many public libraries, archives and record offices have had their budgets reduced over the past few years, so you may need adopt more creative approaches:

General income raised via digital prints, microfilm copies or the sale of publications may be another way of increasing income, along with hiring rooms or staff giving talks, but in a library setting this may go into the general pot rather than being passed on to the local studies team.

Users can also be authors and publishers and will often be happy to help support you in obtaining their books, such as presenting a copy of their work as an acknowledgement of the help you have given or giving you a discount for the purchase of multiple copies. You can also barter, so if an author or publisher wishes to include photographs from your collection, it may be possible to negotiate a discount or free copies of books in lieu of payment, (in addition to a credit). A book signing or an offer of hosting a talk to promote the book could also be offered in return for free copies.

It is also worth asking suppliers if they are able to offer you a discount as they may be able to do this if a large amount is being spent, if they have older or display stock that they need to sell quickly, or if it is a quiet time of year.

If money is very tight it may be necessary to think of how you can achieve something over a number of years, for example, specialist conservation of a collection could be undertaken in small sections over a number of years rather than in one batch.

It is also useful to have a wish list of items that can be quickly purchased if money is left over toward the end of the year, or if a pot of money is found elsewhere. Conservation items, for example, acid free photograph pockets are always needed and the time between ordering and receiving the goods can be within a couple of weeks, so this is always a good option. However, it is also important to identify larger items that may need replacing, for example, scanners, microfilm readers, or display cabinets, so details can be provided quickly if money is available unexpectedly.

Be realistic with any project costs, especially if part of a grant funded project. HLF and similar funders expect to pay professionals for their time, and to cover costs. This can include time taken to catalogue items, room hire, staff time and storage. These costs need to be built into the project pan from the start.

Are your charges at the right levels? Many people, though not all, realize that local services need to cover their costs and users are now more used to paying to access electronic versions of parish records and old newspapers. Compare your costs for providing copies, room hire, answering enquiries, giving talks etc. to others, including neighboring library authorities.

Lastly is it time to check that your priorities are the correct ones? For example:

Is your Local Studies Collections Policy right, for example, are you collecting for the right geographical area? Are your collections duplicating those of others? Are there gaps which need concentrating on?

Rather than have items conserved it may be advisable to ensure the originals do not deteriorate by directing users to online surrogates, such as those hosted by https://maps.nls.uk, https://www.hathitrust.org and https://archive.org/details/books

Most importantly, are you doing what users want and need? Does data and users’ comments support your priorities?

Further reading:

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