Optimal resource allocation and budgeting in libraries

Libraries since their inception 4000 years ago have been in a process of constant change. Although, changes were in slow motion for centuries, in the last decades, academic libraries have been continuously striving to adapt their services to the ever-changing user needs of students and academic staff. In addition, e-content revolution, technological advances, and ever-shrinking budgets have obliged libraries to efficiently allocate their limited resources among collection and services. Unfortunately, this resource allocation is a complex process due to the diversity of data sources and formats required to be analyzed prior to decision-making, as well as the lack of efficient integration methods. The main purpose of this study is to develop an integrated model that supports libraries in making optimal budgeting and resource allocation decisions among their services and collection by means of a holistic analysis. To this end, a combination of several methodologies and structured approaches is conducted. Firstly, a holistic structure and the required toolset to holistically assess academic libraries are proposed to collect and organize the data from an economic point of view. A four-pronged theoretical framework is used in which the library system and collection are analyzed from the perspective of users and internal stakeholders. The first quadrant corresponds to the internal perspective of the library system that is to analyze the library performance, and costs incurred and resources consumed by library services. The second quadrant evaluates the external perspective of the library system; user’s perception about services quality is judged in this quadrant. The third quadrant analyses the external perspective of the library collection that is to evaluate the impact of the current library collection on its users. Eventually, the fourth quadrant evaluates the internal perspective of the library collection; the usage patterns followed to manipulate the library collection are analyzed. With a complete framework for data collection, these data coming from multiple sources and therefore with different formats, need to be integrated and stored in an adequate scheme for decision support. A data warehousing approach is secondly designed and implemented to integrate, process, and store the holistic-based collected data. Ultimately, strategic data stored in the data warehouse are analyzed and implemented for different purposes including the following: 1) Data visualization and reporting is proposed to allow library managers to publish library indicators in a simple and quick manner by using online reporting tools. 2) Sophisticated data analysis is recommended through the use of data mining tools; three data mining techniques are examined in this research study: regression, clustering and classification. These data mining techniques have been applied to the case study in the following manner: predicting the future investment in library development; finding clusters of users that share common interests and similar profiles, but belong to different faculties; and predicting library factors that affect student academic performance by analyzing possible correlations of library usage and academic performance. 3) Input for optimization models, early experiences of developing an optimal resource allocation model to distribute resources among the different processes of a library system are documented in this study. Specifically, the problem of allocating funds for digital collection among divisions of an academic library is addressed. An optimization model for the problem is defined with the objective of maximizing the usage of the digital collection over-all library divisions subject to a single collection budget. By proposing this holistic approach, the research study contributes to knowledge by providing an integrated solution to assist library managers to make economic decisions based on an “as realistic as possible” perspective of the library situation.

Articulación de la gestión de riesgo a la ordenación territorial; caso de la provincia del Azuay

Este trabajo está enfocado al planteamiento y propuesta del modelo a considerar pretende abordar desde la periferia de la provincia del Azuay hacia su centro cantonal, buscando obtener un modelo mucho más cercano a una realidad general y las formas de actuación desde aquellos centros carentes de recursos hasta el mayor centro generador de los mismos. Se ha empezado abordando la problemática general de los riesgos que afectan en todo sentido a los seres humanos, que permitan definir sobre cuales se podrían actuar en la zona de estudio, para esto se determinó conceptualizaciones de territorio y riesgos como: caracterización de los fenómenos de riesgo en el Azuay en una perspectiva histórica; con énfasis en acontecimientos de magnitud en los últimos 25 años, definición de las tipologías de riesgos y conceptualizaciones de la Ordenación Territorial, para establecer la interrelación de conceptos y acciones que permita entender a la innovación como la capacidad de introducir nuevos métodos que apunten a mejorar las condiciones de competitividad del territorio, estudiando los posibles instrumentos de aplicación y la relación intrínseca con la administración pública. Finalmente se estableció un diagnóstico general de la provincia que permitió centrarse en tres fenómenos de riesgos: las fallas geológicas, las inundaciones y deslizamientos de masa, que se han convertido en los principales factores de afección. Con el marco teórico definido y el diagnostico establecido fue posible que en base a varios estudios preliminares en América Latina y Europa sobre situaciones de riesgos similares; se realice un planteamiento para enfrentar las situaciones de peligro de la Provincia, las alternativas de soluciones, de mitigaciones y prevención, que sumado a la gestión administrativa local y regional, permita establecer mecanismos estratégicos aplicables en las fases de la Ordenación Territorial. La propuesta plantea entre sus más importantes resultados: la administración responsable, ámbito temporal de validez de las acciones, establece modelos de ocupación inmediata de zonas seguras y ocupación diferida de áreas con riesgo aceptable, que hacen posible enfrentar estos fenómenos naturales y disminuir las pérdidas de vidas humanas.