Funding survey
At the end of August 2007, in a project initiated by the Council and funded by the Ministry of Education, a basic survey on the funding of university libraries was completed. The survey revealed several problems concerning the funding of university libraries.
Based on the survey, it can be stated that:
- The funding of university libraries has not correlated with the funding of the universities
- Space costs take up an ever-larger part of the university libraries' budget
- Personnel costs have not increased, even though professional competence requirements in the field have grown
- The centralised support by the Ministry of Education forms only ten percent of all the information material acquisitions of the university libraries
- The support by the Ministry of Education for centralised information materials acquisitions has not followed the cost development
- At some university libraries, the majority of customers come from outside the university.
Based on the survey and the discussion that followed, the Council decided to prepare a public statement concerning the finances of the University Libraries.