Unit costing of technical processing in an academic library: a case study of Central Library, B.H.U. for conducting cost benefit analysis

Abstract

The University libraries in India are in the midst of financial crisis. A number of events taken together have contributed to the crisis like the phenomenal rise in cost, the gradual decline in the budgetary resources, phenomenal rise in the publication and steady increase in the number of users and their expectations. Among the factors contributing to the crisis, the most critical is finance. The fiscal management of libraries has always been a difficult task because of the imbalance between the cost of services that libraries would like to provide and the resources available to meet these. The chronic imbalance between the library’s commitments and resources threatens to become a vast gulf with the soaring information and declining budgetary support that characterizes the present time and the next decade.