How Much Do the “Best” Colleges Spend on Libraries? Using College Rankings to Provide Library Financial Benchmarks

Abstract

Recent ACRL guidelines1 and standards2 urge academic librarians to compare selected input and output measures with peer institutions for assessment. This paper provides an example of such a comparison, using a freely available statistical tool from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).3 Applying the NCES data tool to liberal arts colleges chosen by U.S. News and World Report (USN&WR)4 as the “Best Liberal Arts Colleges” provides one strategy for choosing financial benchmarks to target, as well as staffing and output measures for comparison. Using liberal arts colleges ranked in the top third by USN&WR, about $2,000/FTE would be the 2004 reported amount that the “best” colleges spent on library resources.