Other Background Material

WebJunction Grand Tour of Alternative Funding Strategies. - Wonderful online tour offered by the WebJunction staff showing what some libraries are already doing to generate non-tax revenues. Includes library bookstores, cafes, donation programs, art stores, teddy bear sales, membership programs and a variety of other ventures underway at libraries throughout North America.

American Association of Museums - The AAM is a great source of information on plural funding strategies because museums have been using this approach for a very long time. Two of their publications of particular interest are:

• Slaying the Financial Dragon - a good overview of the many revenue streams museums rely on - also a candid evaluation, and analysis of, the primary revenue sources museums rely on and funding prospects in the near and mid-term.
• Museum Financial Information - this useful financial snapshot of how museums are funded is published every year by the AAM. Includes interesting statistics, like how much net revenue museums generate from cafes and food service ($0.16 per visitor), and other useful figures libraries can use as benchmarks for their own endeavors.

Museum Store Association - The MSA is a good source of information for libraries considering adding stores; or those who want to make their existing ventures more profitable. Only limited information available for non-members - membership costs between $150 - $325 per institution.

Sponsorship.com - A good starting point for exploring sponsorship opportunities in libraries. IEG, which presents the site, is a commercial firm that keeps track of everything dealing with sponsorship they provide everything from news on who is sponsoring whom, to seminars that help you evaluate your 'properties' and how to sell them, to consulting services that can help you put together a sponsorship program. IEG has been around this field for some time, and they also have some experience with libraries - they helped the ALA put together its sponsorship program. There is a good deal of information available for free on the site, and even more available if you decide to subscribe to their newsletter, Sponsorship Report, or attend one of their seminars.

The Complete Guide to Foodservice in Cultural Institutions: Your Keys to Success in Restaurants, Catering, and Special Events. - By Arthur Manask.Arthur Manask is one of the country's best-known consultants on restaurants, cafes and food service in museums and other cultural institutions - including libraries. The Complete Guide provides a practical and detailed overview of what it takes to successfully operate any kind of food service including how to analyze and understand your particular market and what it will support, whether you should operate it yourself or contract it out, the role of special events and catering, and much more. Also includes several case studies to help you get a better idea of potential problems in food service operations and how to resolve them. Text is available in print or for download as an ebook from Amazon.

ALADN - ALADN is the premier group for fundraising and development in academic libraries. They have been meeting annually to compare notes and swap stories since 1995 and, collectively, they have a wealth of information about the special issues and problems of trying to do development inside an academic environment that does not always welcome these efforts. Although the focus is on academic fundraising, they are a great place to learn more about how to cultivate donors, manage annual funds and initiate special fundraising events. ALADN also runs the LIBDEV listserve , a great source of development information in libraries ranging from the basic (what kind of return can I expect from a mailing?) to the more esoteric (how much should I charge to name the building after a major donor?). The ALADN Web site has links to presentations from their previous and up-coming conferences.

Friends of the St. Paul Public Library - The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library provide a great example of how private and public funding can complement each other. Under the direction of Peter Pearson, President, the Friends have raised and contributed nearly $11 million to the St. Paul Library over the past 10 years. Also, due in large part to the strong advocacy of the Friends, the St. Paul Library was able to pass a dedicated library tax over the strenuous objections of the mayor and some city officials, proving that strong private support also elicits strong public support.

Urban Libraries Council - The ULC commissioned the "NATIONAL SURVEY OF THE MARKETS FOR MUSEUMS, PUBLIC LIBRARIES, PUBLIC TELEVISION, PUBLIC RADIO AND THEIR ENGAGEMENT IN INFORMAL LEARNING ACTIVITIES," a study by Dr. George D'Elia at the School of Informatics, SUNY Buffalo. The study compares in elaborate detail the markets for libraries, public broadcasting and museums. One interesting finding is that the public radio audience and public library patrons share many of the same demographics; both are significantly more well-educated and well-off than the population as a whole. Education has been shown to be the most important predictor of philanthropic giving, therefore, if library patrons are as well-educated as NPR listeners, there's a good chance they will be as generous.

NCES Library Statistics - NCES is the authoritative source for library statistics of all types. The National Center for Education Statistics, NCES, collects and maintains detailed data on both public and academic libraries. Want to know where your library - or any public library in the country, for that matter - gets its money? Just look it up with the NCES Peer Comparison Tool. Type in the name of your library (must be the name of the library system as a whole, e.g., Los Angeles County Library, Chicago Public Library - the name of a branch won't work) The tool will retrieve a list of libraries matching your search; click on your library to see detailed statistics, including how much money it receives from local, state and federal taxes, as well as other sources of funds. You can also compare it to other libraries of your choosing. For an overall statistical picture, see Public Libraries in the Untied States published annually by NCES and available with full text online. The NCES data lags several years behind - the most recent material is currently 2001. For more recent statistics, you must go either to the library itself, or sometimes to the state library Web site for its home state.

Guidestar - Guidestar is an online database of information on non-profit and charitable organizations and foundations - including library foundations and friends groups. Guidestar includes IRS Form 990s, tax returns for most non-profits making more than $25,000 / year. These forms can be detailed sources of information on how well non-profits are performing, including: amount of revenue raised, expenses, salaries of top officers and employees, and how the revenue was spent. This is a great source for benchmarking the performance of library support groups, as well as for getting an idea of the priorities of foundations and other grant-making organizations.