While it is acknowledged among the faculty and students that the library s book collection is insufficient in meeting research needs, the faculty as a whole, generally falls short on their responsibility to spend allocated funds during the fiscal year. This has resulted in increasingly larger carry over funds. A critical factor for requesting more funding is spending all of the funds designated for a fiscal year within that fiscal year . This shows a demonstrated need for more funding. When the faculty fails to spend their portion of the book budget, they deprive of the library of a demonstrated need for more book allocations and therefore deprive the students of adequate research material.
Many faculty are indifferent to book selection or are too busy to take time to do it properly.
In several cases, the faculty has resorted to quick and dirty methods of spending their funds, such as ordering 3 and 4 multiple copies of each title. Several departments wait until the final deadline approaches in March to begin ordering, thus causing the bulk of the book budget to be spent after the school year is over. Book selection should be a shared responsibility between library and classroom faculty, because while the faculty makes the assignments, it is the librarians who assist the students with locating information and identifying research needs. This is why it has become a common practice among many institutions to include librarians in the selection process and to assign them budgets for purchasing books in their liaison areas. Not only will this provide librarians with a working knowledge of their assigned subject areas, but it will also close subject gaps in the collection and facilitate a more timely expenditure of the book budget.