Traces the $12 billion increase in spending by New York school districts between 1972 and 1992, correcting for inflation. Finds that real expenditures per pupil increased faster than inflation, that much of this increase was because of spending on disabled students, and that three-quarters of the increase was accounted for by increases in salaries…

This proceedings contains the introduction, keynote address, panel discussion, and four papers. Topics include: role of the library and librarians in the information age, the librarian as information consultant, marketing the library to the parent organization, ownership versus access, and financial realities of providing information services in…

Examines the conceptual basis for the cost of quality and its application to libraries. The framework for analysis of this conceptual basis includes definitions of the cost of quality; a brief historical review of the cost of quality; and the application of quality cost to libraries, including an explanation of how quality costs respond to quality…

Compares OCLC's competitively priced online search services--EPIC, designed for librarians and experienced searchers, and FirstSearch, designed for end-users. Discussed are databases offered, ease of searching, holdings information, training needs, and pricing. Appendices of available databases and indexes for each service are included. (four…

Young husbands and wives with children had less formal education and lower incomes than couples without children. Couples in both groups had total expenditures that exceeded their after-tax income. The economic status of young families with children varied depending on the wife's employment status and the number of children. (BC)

Analysis of early intervention expenditure data for 157 children in Massachusetts revealed an enormous variability in the total expenditure per child estimate. The study identified specific child, family, and program characteristics as predictors of different types of service hours. Difficulty in using one mean expenditure figure for planning is…

Examination of cost and job placement data for 428 of 2,958 courses taught in California Regional Occupational Centers and Programs showed few differences among 8 course areas, suggesting that centers invest differing amounts in areas to achieve equivalent placement. Cost-benefit analysis may be of limited usefulness when context cannot be…

William Clune's adequacy agenda, to improve student performance standards through combining larger compensatory expenditures with increased site-based management in disadvantaged schools, illuminates the problem of productivity in educational spending. A mere infusion of money will not improve matters. Research is needed that considers how base…

Examines interlibrary loan (ILL) charges for photocopied material at two academic libraries, the University of Arizona and the University of Nevada, Reno. Statistics were reported for separate academic units to determine which were the most active users and which were charged the most, and recommendations are made for dealing with ILL charges.…

Ruth Stott violates canons of scholarly debate by attacking author's October 1992 "Kappan" article on world-class academic standards. Average class size predicted only 10% of variation in 13 year-olds' mean mathematics scores in 14 nations supplying reasonable comprehensive sampling frames for International Assessment of Academic…

Applies neural network methods for forecasting 1991-95 per-pupil expenditures in U.S. public elementary and secondary schools. Forecasting models included the National Center for Education Statistics' multivariate regression model and three neural architectures. Regarding prediction accuracy, neural network results were comparable or superior to…

Recent legislative and judicial trends require both adequate and equitable school funding. Legislatures and governors must decide how much funding is needed to generate expected achievement levels. So far, expectation for adequacy has outstripped technologies for calculating it. Ohio's empirical studies and Wyoming's "professional…

Stresses the importance of common understandings of cost definitions and data collection in order to create reliable databases with optimal utility for inter-institutional analysis. Examines definitions of common expenditure categories, discusses cost-accumulation rules governing financial reporting, and explains differences between direct costs…

Discussion of the increasing price of journal subscriptions and the resulting impact on library budgets focuses on libraries in less developed countries. Describes international efforts between developed and developing nations to get scholarly research published, indexed and abstracted, converted to electronic form, and made accessible worldwide.…

Looks at the ways that electronic learning is priced in organizations and the factors that influence the pricing. Discusses pros and cons of several pricing options: price per seat, subscription, pay as you go, per server, free, and payment based on time. (JOW)