Managing the Economics of Owning, Leasing and Contracting Out Information Services identifies and describes the most important factors that must be considered today in making
decisions about the optimal ways to provides access to information. This insightful and state-of-the-art book asks and then answers critical questions such as: How should organizations define their
"core" information services? How can costs be controlled? Should we buy and keep information or should we contract for it as needed? Is it feasible to contract out whole library operations? In
this new book an impressive list of contributors provide, for the first time, a framework for decison-makers to view and review information services within their organizations. Entire units and components of libraries
and information centers are defined and untangled so that the widest variety of organizations can analyze their own environments. Each chapter is accompanied by comments from a broad range of experts in the information
field which enhance and enrich the perspectives of the book. The first two chapters carefully examine and then explain how information services and systems function within an organization, and how this kind
of work can be handled in-house or contracted out. The following two chapters describe the complexities of the information world -- the information resources and technologies themselves. Realistic expert advice is
provided in each chapter on issues such as cost-benefit analysis, the pros and cons of outsourcing and ownership versus pay-as-you-go procurement. With collaborative ventures providing more and more
opportunities for sharing of systems, sercies and resources, a chapter is devoted to the issues, problems and benefits of cooperative use of information systems and services. Prior to a review of future trends, a full
chapter is devoted to fiscal issues -- costing, pricing, internal charge-backs and the dilemma of how to get "hard" information about "soft" services. Published in a time of economic
retrenchment for information centers and libraries, this book will be considered a bible for decision-makers in all sectors who are faced with making bottom-line decisions about how to provide cost-effective information
services. ©1993
224 pages, Softbound, ISBN:1-85742-018-7 |
