Forecasting Expenditures for Library Materials: Approaches and Techniques

Forecasting expenditures requires the librarian to develop competencies in a number of areas. These areas include economic conditions, the publishing industry, collection development policies and money management. Developing competencies in these areas involves general reading on economic issues, focused reading on the publishing industry and the use and/or development of national and local price indexes for significant categories of materials collected by the library. Command of various techniques for forecasting payments and managing funds is necessary to fully expend without overexpending the annual materials budget.