Public Library Materials Fund and Budget Survey 2007-09

This series is now discontinued
due to lack of sponsorship

LISU's regular Public Library Materials Fund and Budget Survey describes in detail how our Public Library Services are faring and their plans for the future. Based upon an extensive questionnaire survey of UK Libraries, it is a compilation of recent spending results, together with budgets for 2008–2009.

Sponsored by Nielsen Book, the series provides an independent and objective overview of public library resource utilisation in the UK.

Library managers, the book trade, academics and others all need reliable and up-to-date statistics. The results are available just six months after data gathering began and they represent figures from an overall response rate of 76% to the survey.

Details of expenditure and forecast budgets are included under several headings:

Information on these themes is presented in three main sections:

1. A commentary, which includes summary tables by type of authority, with some trend information over the last five years.

2. Summary tables by theme, each table listing every authority under its sector.

3. Authority tables, including all the data submitted by each authority.

Themes are summarised by type of authority, namely: London boroughs, metropolitan districts, English unitary authorities, English counties, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Data are presented for the 2006/07 actual expenditure, the 2007/08 original estimate, the 2007/08 actual expenditure, and the 2008/09 budget estimate.

The Public Library Materials Fund and Budget Survey is an important source which takes the pulse at several important pressure points of the entire UK public library system. This volume of extensive and detailed data is a useful management, marketing and study aid. It can be downloaded free of charge by clicking on the link at the top of this page. Print copies are also available from LISU, at a cost of £37.50, inclusive of postage and packing within the UK.