The acquisition and maintenance costs associated with library automation systems in Finnish public libraries
Program: electronic library and information systems
ISSN: 0033-0337
Article publication date: 1 March 2003
Abstract
This paper reports the results from a survey of the costs and types of the library automation systems in use in public libraries in Finland. The study was carried out during 2000. The results show that almost all of the Finnish public libraries have some kind of library automation system and that 80 per cent of them are already offering services via the Internet. The costs of establishing public library automation have been approximately 16.8 million Euros with annual operating costs of about 5.7 million Euros, i.e. about 1.2 Euros for every Finnish citizen. The labour costs used in building and maintaining library automation systems had been poorly monitored in the libraries. Thus it is proposed that a model for a better cost‐effective analysis of library automation should be established for the Finnish public libraries.
Keywords
Citation
Saarti, J. (2003), "The acquisition and maintenance costs associated with library automation systems in Finnish public libraries", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 37 No. 1, pp. 25-30. https://doi.org/10.1108/00330330310460563
Publisher
:MCB UP Ltd
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited