Rationalization of the investment on information resources in libraries: a case study at the Library of the University of Almeria (Spain)

The economic situation Europe is currently experiencing, and consequently, the constant economic adjustments set by Public Administrations of European countries, are forcing the university libraries to rethink their acquisitions policies under the criteria of use and cost, in order to achieve a greater efficiency in terms of offered services, available resources and invested budget. The aim of this paper is to describe how the Library of the University of Almeria (Spain) is acting in this environment, producing annual assessment reports of its information resources, and using them as the basis for raising its budget. This evaluation includes both the electronic resources (through detailed studies of the number of searches and downloaded documents in all subscribed e-journals and e-books databases) and the recommended bibliography for students in printed format (through the analysis of the number of loans and the use in the reading rooms). As a result of this analysis, adaptation of the bibliographic collection to the users’ needs, modification of the staff workloads, and accuracy of the librarians training programs, have been achieved.