"Optimizing Your Library`s Return on Technology Investment" is a new report from OCLC

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Optimizing Your Library’s Return on Technology Investment” is a new report from OCLC.   It documents conversations with library leaders about the tension between delivering innovation in a fiscally challenging environment.  It looks specifically at the concept of return on investment (ROI) and promotes the idea that opening up the spectrum of ‘returns’ for consideration can help build a robust business case for new library technology investment without limiting innovation.  The roll-out of WorldShare Management Services has informed the cooperative’s view that positive aspirational, economic and operational outcomes await libraries taking the first steps towards a new generation of library management technology.

In one interview entitled “Optimizing Fiscal ROI”, Rene Erlandson, Director at University of Nebraska Omaha, states “…we selected WorldShare Management Services (WMS) because as budgets grew tighter, we needed to get the best possible return on funding.  We’ve reduced our server and software costs, redeployed four staff members to other areas and eliminated one FTE staff position through staff retirement, and so far we’re saving more than $150,000 annually.”
The savings enabled the university library to deploy funding in other key areas, which have generated further returns through improved satisfaction of students and faculty staff. Forecasting how savings made from decommissioning legacy hardware and software might be redeployed to strategic areas like e-collections, can help build the initial case for replacing outdated library technology.

Optimizing Your Library’s Return on Technology Investment” offers the reader the thoughts of library leaders from around the world as we negotiate the changing needs of our users.
To download the paper go to http://connect.oclc.org/roireport