New benchmarking study reveals current corporate library services within biopharmaceutical industry

Corporate libraries and information centers are under increasing pressure in today's environment of shrinking business resources. To meet those pressures, libraries and information centers need to demonstrate their value to their organization. That means library leaders need to know whether their activities are cost effective and whether they are spending in the areas that have the greatest impact for their customers.

Research and consulting leader Best Practices, LLC undertook this new study to benchmark the services and resources of corporate libraries within the biopharmaceutical industry. This study will help library and information leaders compare the scope and delivery of library services at their companies with those at other organizations. In addition, this research study will help library and information center leaders compare the budget, cost recovery and staffing for library services at their companies with those at leading organizations within the biopharmaceutical industry.

One-third of participating libraries do not recover costs for the services and resources they provide, while others used more than one method, according to "2015 Library Services Benchmarks: Corporate Library Services in the Pharmaceutical & Medical Device Industries." The most common method for recovering costs is asking heavy user groups to chip in to pay for specialized resources.

Some of the issues addressed in this research include:

• Use of vendors in services delivery
• Financial resources
• Cost recovery practices
• Distribution of FTE hours by service category
• Penetration of potential user base
• Forces of change likely to impact libraries in the near future

SOURCE Best Practices, LLC