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Virtual Reference, Real Money: Modeling Costs in Virtual Reference Services
- portal: Libraries and the Academy
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 9, Number 1, January 2009
- pp. 133-164
- 10.1353/pla.0.0035
- Article
- Additional Information
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Libraries nationwide are in yet another phase of belt tightening. Without an understanding of the economic factors that influence library operations, however, controlling costs and performing cost-benefit analyses on services is difficult. This paper describes a project to develop a cost model for collaborative virtual reference services. This cost model is a systematic description of all expenses incurred by a library in providing virtual reference service as part of a collaborative.