Evaluation of the Academic Library: Space Allocation

Abstract

Although there is now a corpus of principles and techniques on planning a layout we consider it opportune in view of some recent reviews of space norms, to present a practical method which librarians can use to evaluate space in their libraries.

This is the second project ¹ by the Cambridge University Library Management Research Unit in the series on evaluating the various services and functions of the academic library. The overall aim of the series is to find ways of measuring the benefits from and the effective ness of the various library functions and services, with a view to the eventual production of practical data collection techniques to assist librarians in the evaluation of their libraries. Whilst complete cost accounting is not always practical and necessary when installing changes in an organization, a degree of costing is useful to illustrate the benefits which will accrue from adopting new methods and to illustrate that the expenditure of money will result in economies and/or enhanced utilization. We feel that the relative allocation of space provides a more meaningful basis for comparison between libraries than building costs.