ABSTRACT
In the Spring of 1982 I was asked to write an article on the subject of financial planning for the 1980s from the perspective of the publicly-supported medium-sized academic library. As I reviewed the topic I began to realize that being in Texas, where higher education currently is not quite in the same dire straits as the rest of the nation, perhaps my view was too narrow. Further, as I read the literature of academic librarianship and higher education, it seemed to me that the picture in regard to academic library finances today is confusing and sometimes contradictory because of the wide variance of perceptions from campus to campus.
