Library Return on Investment - Report from International Federation of Library Associations

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) has just published a document on Library Return on Investment - Review of Evidence from the Last 10 Years:

"Over the last few decades, libraries have been exploring various ways to assess and demonstrate their value and contribution to users and societies at large. One of the approaches libraries have taken is examining the monetary value of their services to measure their outcome and assess the impacts of their work ..."

"Among such studies, Return on Investment assessments are a commonly used approach. At its simplest, an ROI assessment determines the ratio of net gains (monetised benefits) to the costs of an investment (...)"

The publication looks at a number of different studies from around the world that have evaluated the ROI of major public library systems, academic libraries and special libraries (government, health, law and corporate).