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Using ARL Statistics in Budget Justification Analysis: An Example from U Florida

peer analysis bar chart from presentation by Brian Keith
“Statistical Analysis of Library Budgets” by Brian Keith (PDF)

Helping ARL member library staff understand their libraries’ budgets and make the case for their libraries is an important function of the data ARL collects. Brian Keith, associate dean for administrative services and faculty affairs at the University of Florida, demonstrated this in his presentation, “Statistical Analysis of Library Budgets” (PDF), at the ARL Survey Coordinators and SPEC Liaisons Meeting on January 24, 2014, in Philadelphia.

Keith’s analysis takes place in the context of implementing a responsibility center management (RCM) budget model at Florida but investigates the broader concepts of how academic library system resources and the institutional demands of universities relate to one another. His work employs different analytical approaches to a variety of measures for library resources and university characteristics influencing the demand for materials and services, and has found statistically valid predictive relationships and correlations. His presentation reflects Florida’s efforts to address funding issues during a shift in university budget models.

If you have a model for financial analysis that you are willing to share, please e-mail Martha Kyrillidou, senior director of statistics and service quality programs at ARL.


The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 125 research libraries in the US and Canada. ARL’s mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, facilitating the emergence of new roles for research libraries, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the web at https://www.arl.org/.

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