Hi Carissa, 

 

The only revenue-generating scheme I’ve tried was selling de-accessioned books in bulk, and there wasn’t much choice about it.

 

At a previous job at a small college, I found myself, as head librarian on a staff of one, having to move the library to a new space half the size of the old one. Consequently, I had to get rid of half our collection.

 

I thought that the best I could make of an unfortunate situation was to sell our newly-de-accessioned books, and thereby generate some revenue (maybe not the strict definition of revenue -- bring in cash, anyway) for the scholarship fund.

 

So in the weeks before moving to the new space, I set the library up like a flea market and got ready to sell, I hoped, at least half of the 10,000+ items  now arrayed in boxes on the floor. Each item, one dollar.

 

You might have seen this coming, but we sold very, very few books, DVDs, CDs, or anything else. Better World Books would up taking a moving truck of material off our hands.

 

BTW, this occurred – the irony is acute, and painful – at a for-profit college.

 

Wish I had a better suggestions, but there’s my experience!

 

   damien

 

Damien McCaffery | Electronic Resources Librarian | Paul J. Gutman Library | Philadelphia University | 215-951-2674 | mccafferyd@philau.edu

 

From: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG] On Behalf Of Carissa Hernandez
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2017 3:39 PM
To: SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG
Subject: [SERIALST] Revenue generating academic libraries

 

Dear all,

I have been tasked to research ways in which an academic library could possibly be a revenue producing entity at a small university. I have done a literature search, but thought I would pose this question to the collective wisdom (Apologies for cross-posting). 

Any libraries out there that have engaged in revenue generating activities and what have these activities been? What ideas did you come up with? How successful were they? What was more trouble than it was worth? What can a library expect to generate (at best)?

with thanks,

Carissa

Catalog Librarian

 

 


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