Cost of Information Service

Budington, William S.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/1455 Copy

Description

Title

Cost of Information Service

Author(s)

Budington, William S.

Issue Date

1957

Keyword(s)

Reference services (Libraries)

Abstract

"Any survey of the literature concerning the cost of reference service reveals the fact that the subject is one which has been much discussed but without arriving at any very generally accepted conclusions. About 40 per cent of the writing on the topic is devoted to remarks on how ridiculous it is to think that reference and information service is measurable; about 30 per cent on how ridiculous the results are where it has been attempted; about 20 per cent on reporting results (with many apologies for doing so); and the remaining 10 per cent on straightforward statements of procedures, limitations, and valid interpretations. One of the great difficulties seems to be the confusion or misunderstanding of such terms as ""measurement, "" ""cost, "" and ""value. "" The suggestion that reference and information service can be measured is immediately drowned out with a recital of all the variables of personnel, clientele, physical layout, etc. These have nothing to do with actual ""measurement. "" They do have everything to do with the use to which the measurement is to be put. ""Measurement"" is only the comparison of a standard unit with some entity and does not include the comparison of one entity with another. Similarly, one hears the objection that the ""value"" of a reference answer bears no relation to the time spent in finding it, and therefore why try to do anything? The basis of the objection is valid, indeed; there is no relationship between value and cost. But the objection itself is invalid in its assumption that valuation is the purpose of cost analysis. A cost study attempts, purely and simply, to find out what something costs. What it is worth is something entirely different. Information service can be measured quantitatively and the costs determined but comparisons cannot be made with the data; or the ""value"" measured."

Publisher

Graduate School of Library Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Series/Report Name or Number

Allerton Park Institute (4th : 1957)

ISSN

0536-4604

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1455

Copyright and License Information

Copyright owned by Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois 1957.

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