The maintenance formula

Another section from the budget chapter of the Indispensable Librarian, 2nd edition ....

Administrators understand maintenance. They regularly budget for replacing roofs, tuck-pointing brickwork, and resurfacing parking lots. They understand why windows, furnaces, and pencil sharpeners all need to be replaced now and again.

What administrators don’t always understand is that library collections and instructional technologies need to be maintained as well. But once it's pointed out to them, they "get it" and budgets become more realistic.

Use the following formula with your print and e-book collection, share the results with your administrator, and see if it makes a difference. 

Doug's Magic Formula for a Maintenance Budget

Here's one way to calculate what funds you should be spending to keep your resources up-to-date:

Maintenance budget = replacement rate X total number of items X average cost

(Replacement rate = 100%/number of years in the life span of material)

Here are examples:

If a library has an agreed upon supported collection* of 10,000 books with an average cost of $18 per volume with an estimated life of a book at 20 years, then the maintenance budget should be 5% X 12,000 X $20 or $9,000. (Remember the replacement rate is 100%/life span or 1.00/20 or 5%) 

If a school has 20 DVD players which cost $100 each and have a life span of 10 years,  then the maintenance budget for players should be 10% X 20 X $100 or $200.

Here's one for you to try:

A school has 40 computers with a life span of 5 years. The average replacement cost of a computer is $1000. How much should be spent each year to maintain the computers?

Replacement rate =   1.00/ _______ years

Maintenance = _______________  X ____________________  X ____________________

                       Replacement rate             Total number of items             Average cost of an item                      

or

$_________________ Maintenance budget.

Current, well-maintained materials, even if in smaller quantities, better serve staff and students than large, old, and unreliable materials. If maintenance budgets are inadequate, your materials will get older, fewer in number, less reliable and have less relevance to the user and program. Those who allocate budget dollars need to know this. A maintenance formula will make sense to them. Remember that this is an annual expense, not a one time outlay.

* How do you determine a "supported collection size"? There is no one right way, but it doesn't need to be mutually agreed upon by the librarian, the administration, and the library/technology advisory committee. Here are some things to look at when determining this number:

• Current collection size and how well it serves the curriculum
• Any standards regarding recommended collection size
• Size of school population, number of grades served, and special needs of student groups
• Other digital resources available to students

Image source

Being techno-frugal

Most people can't be easily lumped into either the "spendthrift" or "cheapskate" categories. We seek a cost/benefit ratio that makes some degree of sense - at least to us. And most of us are so tight we squeak about some expenditures and pour money down rat holes when it comes to others.

While I don't mind spending money on travel, grandchildren, personal technologies, or college tuition, I will not pay more than $10 for a bottle of wine or more than $100 for a pair of shoes. I buy generic cans of green beans and tomato soup or none at all, and my car is, well, not a Lexus. I'd rather go to an Olive Garden or Dennys than a fancy restaurant any day. Lights left on in unoccupied rooms drive me nuts. But what I really hate paying for are services that I don't use.

Yesterday morning in a fit of frugality, I cancelled our home telephone landline and cable television. In 2008 this bundled package of telephone, cable, and Internet cost $90 a month, but MediaCom's most recent "loyalty package" for the same services is $130 a month, going up to $150 a month the next year, with the two-year contract mandatory. Internet by itself costs about $45 a month. 

The thing is the LWW and I both have cell phones that work just fine. We watch less than two hours a television a week and what we do watch (The Daily Show) can be viewed online. We were spending about $1200 (120 bottles of wine!) a year on services we just didn't use.

Maybe it is the winter doldrums, but I seemed to encounter non-sensical "values" all week. I've already blogged about Apple's "inexpensive" e-textbooks. I took a poor Barnes & Noble education representative to task on Friday about how their Nooks (like Amazon's Kindles) won't read each other's e-book formats (Would I buy a DVD player at Target that only plays movies I buy from Target?) and how the cost of e-books has been steadily rising instead of falling. I denied another request to add text messaging to the school's cellphone accounts. I'm a little surprised that three spirits didn't interrupt my sleep last night. 

Maybe it's that I'm working both on my book's budget chapter and on our district's technology budget right now, so I'm just thinking about funding a lot. 

Frugality has gotten a lot of attention when it comes to personal expenditures in these tough economic times. Why hasn't frugality been a topic in library and technology circles as well?

End of rant.

BFTP: Illusion of change

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post, March 14, 2007.  This is one of my very favorite posts and probably the most cynical thing I've ever written. And I seem to be the only one who likes it since it remains on my list of writings that have been roundly rejected by print publishers...

_________________________

Once again a strange e-mail (with a bit of a sulphuric smell) appeared in my inbox. The district’s filter seems curiously ineffective against this domain. These are sent to me now  and then. I find them interesting, if disturbing, and think others might ponder them as well. - Doug

From: "Screwdisk" <sdisk666@inferno.org> 

To: "Wormwood" <wormie@terrafirma.edu> 

Subject: Change? No need to panic.

Date: Thur March 15, 2007 :10:19 -0500 

X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 7.734 

Importance: Tepid

Wormie, Wormie, Wormie, when will you learn not to press the PANIC and SEND buttons at the same time? Why in the blessed name of Beelzebub you imps were ever given e-mail addresses, I will never understand.

Change is not, I repeat, not imminent in the schools in your area. Wide-scale improvements, especially originating from within the schools themselves, I guarantee are impossible. Despite the wishful thinking in teacher and administrative preperation programs, professional journals, and educational conferences; despite the amount of money pumped into teacher training; and despite the seeming unhappiness of  politicians and the public, your schools will remain unchanged into the foreseeable future (and I can see a very long way) with any differences being cosmetic only. 

How do I know this, Wormie? How can I strut my confidence with tail held so high?  A human named Machiavelli discovered the reason 500 years ago. He wrote in the bible of political power and basic textbook on human nature, The Prince:  

"... it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new."

Stop and think, Wormster, what impetus is there for innovation if the one in charge of change has done quite well under the current system? They don’t pull superintendents, principals, or classroom teachers from the ranks of those whom the current education system failed! (Well, maybe a few tech directors, but they are different case.) College professors are the total masters the educational system –having risen to pinnacle of academia simply by being very, very good at “school.” And you expect them to change this perfect system that rewards the best - they themselves? Please.

The reason these  “leaders” have the ability, the position, the power to make change is that they have all have succeeded in some fashion in a traditional education model. And subliminal questions run through every decision they make - "Is this change going to screw up the system that has made it possible for me to hold my position?" "Why do that which might shake me from my current upper most branch?"

They will therefore only initiate those changes that don't really change anything very much, that won't threaten their standing in their school or community. Risks are for fools, especially when taken for anyone outside their own genetic make up or social class. Both Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel were, after all, quite fictional. 

You also need to remember, what passes for educational “reform” is either window-dressing or a diversion from a genuine goal. And this art needs to be encouraged, Wormwood! The illusion of movement is better than no movement at all for those of us who must defeat effective school change. 

Has technology changed anything in schools? Hah! So what if the teacher sends an email home instead of a paper note or delivers a dull lecture with dull slides instead of overhead transparencies. Reforms like privatizing education “to make it competitive” are a smoke screen by the rich to simply cut their own taxes and avoid paying for an adequate education for the great unwashed. Our boss is saving a special place for the genius who started calling vouchers, scholarships. Genius! Evil genius, to be sure, but genius!

The nature of schooling is not to foment revolution, and you should know this, you little devil. It was in your seminar last year. Did you only memorize this for the test? The mission of the school is to help maintain the current social order – keep those who are in power, in power, and those who are out, out. Do you dishonestly believe that either businesses or bureaucrats want creative, problem-solving, status climbing employees? Educated workers who may demand higher salaries? Employees who wish to use their minds as well as their backs? Do you know how hard it is to manage those unpredicatable people - and to keep them from trying to take one’s own job? Nothing personal, Wormwood, but I hired you because you work cheap, are reliable, and are not the brightest ember in the brimstone. You are my kinda’ minion.

Study, my little demon, the works of Machiavelli and Menken and Aristophanes and Twain – those who saw unchanging human nature as it is, not as humans wish it were. Know humans as they are and use their own foibles to plan and manipulate. Keep the humans rearranging the deck chairs on their sinking ships. It makes them fun to watch.

Pardon the expression, but CHILL, Wormwood. Dinosaurs liked themselves just fine – right up until the time the asteroid hit. I remember. I was there. Our Boss fears effective education more than all the holy water on the planet. But effective education has little chance of coming to pass – at least in this millennium. 

Insincerely,

Screwdisk

With apologies (as always) to C.S. Lewis