ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


September 1991 / 491

Innovations

Faculty start-up costs and library support

By Norm an D. Stevens

Director o f  University Libraries 
University o f  Connecticut

At a time when many academic institutions, and 
their libraries, are facing financial challenges, it 
becomes difficult to maintain or develop an ad­
equate library acquisitions budget. At die same 
time, neither institutions nor libraries can afford to 
stand still. Academic and library planning pro­
ceeds. Institutions and libraries change. At a time 
when traditional approaches don’t produce needed 
resources, fresh ideas on how to obtain increased 
acquisitions funds need to be pursued vigorously. 
Apart from the usual pitch for increased private 
fundraising specifically targeted for library acquisi­
tions, new approaches that link the library to the 
academic planning and decision-making process by 
building upon institutional priorities and strategies, 
seem to offer the greatest prospect of success.

Linkages

Although there is not yet any substantial amount 
of information in the literature about approaches 
that have brought positive results, there are a few 
success stories that can be cited. The 1989-90 
Annual Report from the Rutgers University Librar­
ies, for example, indicates that expenditures for 
library materials increased only minimally but that 
“subject strengthening funds, reflecting University 
program priorities established by the Committee 
on Standards and Priorities and other sources, were 
provided for 37 subjects in New Brunswick and 8 
programs in Newark.” The establishment of new 
academic programs or degrees, especially where 
approval is obtained through a formal review pro­
cess, is an opportunity to seek special support for 
library resources that has met with success in some 
institutions. Tying the need for additional library 
resources to academic priorities or program devel­
opment makes the appeal for funds more real and 
immediate and less self-centered.

Facu lty  start-up  costs

One of the most serious competitive challenges 
now confronting many academic institutions is the 
recruitment of new faculty. While the availability of 
qualified candidates and the level of competition 
varies from discipline to discipline and institution, 
the evidence is that most academic institutions re­
gard the ability to hire the best possible new faculty, 
as well as to attract minorities and women, as one of 
the most critical issues before them. Institutions 
may be limited in what they can pay but they have 
become increasingly innovative in examining alter­
native benefits that they can offer in their efforts to 
hire highly qualified and sought-after faculty.

As the university seeks to attract 
new faculty in an increasingly 
competitive market, the ability 
to offer those faculty start-up 
funding in the form  o f a special 
allocation f o r  library 
materials...can be an attractive 
incentive.

A recent memo from the provost and academic 
vice president of the University of Connecticut, for 
example, cogently makes an argument for the state 
to provide the University with substantial capital 
equipment funds for new faculty start-up costs.

“The key element needed to insure a high-quality 
teaching, research, and public service university is 
the continuing ability to hire and retain quality



492 / C&RL News

faculty. The marketplace for hiring new faculty, 
particularly in the scientific fields, has become 
extremely competitive within the last five years and 
is predicted to become even tighter in the years 
ahead. This competitiveness is an outcome o f three 
basic factors. First, as with the overall workforce in 
general, much of the current faculty cohort is aging 
together and will retire during this decade…Second, 
sufficient replacements are not being trained. In 
numerous fields, the demand for outstanding appli­
cants far outstrips the supply. Third, outstanding 
faculty often are able to leverage a dollar of invest­
ment in start-up into four or five dollars in grant 
awards. What has emerged is a very strong and 
highly competitive sellers market in many academic 
fields. The university must bid competitively against 
other universities for the most qualified candidates. 
And the provision of adequate start-up support has 
often become the single most important factor in 
successfully recruiting new faculty.”

Typically, such start-up costs are highest and 
most visible in the sciences. In those disciplines 
faculty need specific equipment and laboratory

As Arlo Guthrie once suggested‚ 
i f  3 libraries are able to do so, 
they may think it is a move­
ment; i f  50  libraries do so, they 
may think it is an organization.

facilities, which a university probably does not 
possess because of obsolescence and changing in­
terests. The University of Connecticut memo 
suggests that those start-up costs may range from 
$250,000 to $1,000,000 depending on the disci­
pline and the stature or desirability o f the candi­
date.

In responding to that memo, I sought to make 
the case, which has been accepted in principle, that 
start-up costs also ought to include the new library 
collections needed by faculty in all disciplines but 
especially in the humanities and the social sciences. 
I suggested that, “the University Libraries have 
traditionally been in a position to build strong 
research collections primarily by working closely 
with individual faculty members. As a result the 
quality o f those collections is uneven and tends to 
reflect individual faculty interests. That, alongwith 
changing patterns o f interest in almost every aca­
demic field, means that when new faculty join the 
University there is often a need for the university 
Libraries to acquire additional, specialized research 
material to support their primary research interest.

That is true of faculty in all disciplines but is espe­
cially true of those in the social sciences and hu­
manities who rely on the University Libraries as the 
chief support for their research. As the university 
seeks to attract new faculty in an increasingly com­
petitive market, the ability to offer those faculty 
start-up funding in the form o f special allocation for 
library materials, to be expended by the faculty 
member in consultation with appropriate staff in 
the Libraries, can be an attractive incentive.”

Fortunately this turns out to be a not entirely new 
idea although my efforts to identify other institu­
tions offering such incentives have turned up only 
a few examples to date. At the university of Iowa, 
for example, the strategic plan of the university and 
that of the University Libraries incorporates this 
idea. There is now in place at the University of Iowa 
a formal process whereby academic department 
heads, working closely with the administration of 
the University Libraries, identify the need for li­
brary start-up costs as part of the recruitment 
process. I f  a formal library request is then made to 
the vice president for academic affairs, the dean of 
liberal arts is informed so that he may participate in 
the decision as to whether or not such support is 
warranted from his perspective in terms o f recruit­
ment to fill positions. The recruitment o f two new 
faculty members in Asian religious studies brought 
$50,000 in special funds to the University Libraries 
to establish appropriate Buddhist collections with 
the promise o f an additional $50,000 over a period 
of several years. The University Libraries also 
received $25,000 to support new faculty and an 
expanded program in Soviet and East European 
Studies as the result of a proposal developed by 
those faculty. The amounts provided at the Ūniver- 
sity o f Iowa have been modest, especially in com­
parison to the costs o f equipment and laboratories 
for scientists. Library start-up costs in general may 
be modest, but that special support represents a 
recognition of the principle and a starting point that 
we can perhaps all build upon.

At the University of Connecticut, similar efforts 
have been initiated with the chairman o f the History 
Department, which is now seeking to fill an en­
dowed chair in modem Italian history, and the 
director of the African-American Studies Institute, 
which is assisting with the recruitment of six faculty 
members in several disciplines, to obtain such added 
support. They are supportive of the idea and will be 
discussing it with the candidates they wish to hire. 
There are a few indications that similar efforts and/ 
or discussions are underway at other institutions.

W o rk in g  to g e th e r

The real virtues of this approach to obtaining 
additional library support directly from the institu­
tion, in a time of financial constraint, are that, on the



September 1991 / 493

one hand, it builds upon a recognized institutional 
priority and strategy, and that, on the other hand, 
the case is being made for the library by the institu­
tional personnel seeking to hire a strong candidate 
and/or by a candidate whom the institution wishes 
to attract. That is a fresh idea that seems to offer a 
formula for success.

A cynic might suggest that the scientific commu­
nity has banded together to promote the need for 
academic institutions to build and equip new labo­
ratory facilities to attract promising faculty as a 
matter of collective self-interest. For whatever 
reason, the provision of such facilities is rapidly 
becoming an essential element of the recruitment 
process. I f  the academic library community can 
band together in promoting the need for academic 
institutions to build new library collections for the 
same reason, perhaps we can have the same suc­
cess. The more examples we can identify of aca­
demic institutions that do include information re­
source start-up costs as part of a larger organized 
program of support to attract new faculty, the more 
likely we are to establish that as a desirable and 
established component of the faculty recruitment 
process. As Arlo Guthrie once suggested, if  three 
libraries are able to do so, they may think it is a 
movement; and if 50 libraries do so, they may think 
it is an organization. We need a movement if not 
eventually an organization. For that reason, infor­
mation about such discussions and efforts, and

especially about successful programs at other aca­
demic institutions, is solicited. ■  ■

Letters
The following letter to Eileen Cooke, ALA Wash­

ington Office, was forwarded to the editor:
Dear Eileen: I just wanted to confirm in writing 

my appreciation o f the efforts of your office in 
tracking federal information activities and to com­
mend in particular Carol Henderson's regular re­
ports in C&R L News. Keep up the good work!— M. 
Ja co b , M.E.L. Ja c o b  Associates, Columbus, Ohio

To the Editor:
I ’d like to hear from institutions that provide no- 

cost database searching to their primary clientele 
(students, faculty, etc.). I would like information on: 
the total cost of their “free” database searching; 
their total budget for the library; the clientele that 
gets this service; policies that delineate inclusion or 
exclusion for such a service; who must pay for 
database searching and why; their total expendi­
tures for books/monographs; their total expendi­
tures for serials; and any other information. Data for 
the latest fiscal year is preferred. Please write to: 
Harvey Vamet, Director, University Library, Gov­
ernors State University, University Park, IL  60430.—  
H arvey V am et, Governors State University