Each fiscal year, the Furman Libraries choose to allocate a specific portion of their annual materials budget to each academic program. These funds are known as Academic Program Allocations. Faculty within an academic program are responsible for choosing how their allocated funds are spent.

Each academic program has a different allocation based on expenditures over the past three fiscal years. Adjustments in allocations are made prior to the beginning of the fiscal year.

These allocations are to be used for:

• the purchase of library materials within the designated academic program
• one-time purchases such as print books, audiobooks, DVDs, music scores, and one-time electronic purchases.

Additionally, academic departments have a $1,000 allocation to use for the one-time purchase of streaming video licenses. Due to licensing restrictions, we can only purchase streaming videos from vendors that support institutional access. This excludes us from purchasing content from streaming services such as Amazon Prime, Disney+, Netflix, PBS Passport, etc. Streaming video allocations are managed separately from the academic program allocations.

Note: Recurring expenses such as databases or journal subscriptions are reviewed by the Libraries' Collection Development Committee, approved by the Director of Libraries, and paid out of the Libraries' general materials budget.

Each academic program has one designated faculty member who serves as the Library Representative. The responsibilities of the Library Representative include:

• Serving as a single point of contact between their academic program and the Library;
• Ensuring their faculty colleagues understand how allocations work, how to request materials from the Library, and the deadlines for submitting those requests;
• Coordinating and prioritizing requests from their faculty colleagues;
• Communicating requests to the Library;
• Staying informed on the status of academic program allocations through quarterly reports;
• If necessary, requesting additional information about their academic program's requests including complete title lists.

The Library Representative is responsible for coordinating with their faculty colleagues on how to spend academic program allocations. Academic programs have discretion on how allocations are managed and purchasing requests submitted.

We recommend the following workflow:

Faculty members send their requests to their academic program's Library Representative. The Library Representative will:

1. Coordinate and prioritize, if there are multiple requests
2. Submit request(s) by sending an e-mail to Resource Management at: libraryresources@furman.edu

July 1st – Fiscal Year begins. Academic programs can begin spending from their allocations.

July - Any requests received between April 1st and June 30th of the previous fiscal year will be ordered and charged to the appropriate academic program allocation.

September – The first quarter allocation report is sent to Library Representatives and Instruction and Research Services librarian liaisons.

December – The second quarter allocation report is sent to Library Representatives and Instruction and Research Services librarian liaisons.

March - The third quarter allocation report is sent to Library Representatives and Instruction and Research Services librarian liaisons.

March 31st – Deadline for submitting all requests for academic program allocations. This includes items needed for MayX, summer/study away, and any one-time purchases needed prior to July 1st.

April – May – High-priority, urgent one-time requests may be filled on a first-come first-serve basis. Factors that will affect this decision include: material format, vendor, cost, and anticipated shipping time. We cannot guarantee the fulfillment of requests made during this time. All other requests are held until July 1st.

June – No purchases are made from the library materials budget, including the academic program allocations. Any requests received are held until July 1st. Requestors may use services such as interlibrary loan and PASCAL Delivers to access needed materials while waiting for their purchase.

June – The fourth quarter allocation report is sent to Library Representatives and Instruction and Research Services librarian liaisons. All expenditures in this report are final.

June – Academic program allocations are reviewed and updated based on expenditures from the past 3 fiscal years.

Do you have questions or comments about Academic Program Allocations or Library Representative responsibilities? Contact us at libraryresources@furman.edu