Hi all: Over the past three years, we've been reducing or leaving stable the reference budget after years of pretty good growth rates. We have been fortunate enough to have good increases in database licenses budget, so we were not faced with an either/or situation.
One area library of a good sized city has a very low reference budget; ours is 10 times higher. Has anyone else radically cut their reference budgets, what did you do with the excess money, did any of the public miss it, did the staff miss it? Or, did "reference" become circulation, and the circulating book budgets increased, placing into circulation items that are better served there, e.g., the Artist's Market? On a separate topic, how many are using Federated searching, what brands, and what is you and your public's experience? Was an upgrade in server needed to handle the searching (so it did not affect the rest of the system) and/or was an extra fiber line or access to a fiber strand needed? I think of polling all the databases and online catalogs, and my mind begins to boggle on the network resources that might be needed. Thanks a bunch! Dale P.S. If you HAVE cut reference budgets, do you regret it? Why or why not?
