Economic benchmarks Benchmarking data can help a library design reports that show where they stand in relation to other libraries or in relation to more general indicators of the economy. Consumer Price Index. Economic data indicate whether a library's funding is keeping pace with inflation. An important inflation indicator is the Consumer Price Index, produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Commerce Department of the U.S. government. This index measures the cost of an imaginary basket of market goods, and reports the increase or decrease in that price.
Data is available on a monthly and an annual basis.
The Association of Research Libraries has been measuring various aspects of library services since the 1970s and some of this data is available on their Web site. A drawback to this data is that ARL represents an elite group of 120 large academic and research libraries, so the data is not a good reference point for all libraries. It does however represent a significant repository of information about trends in some libraries. Data collected from 1973 to 1994 are available only in print. Data include average and median salaries by race, gender, position, experience, and geographic region.