Heavy Traffic Synchronous Digital Reference Cost Calculator

Caution: if your "Reference transactions per month" are less than the number to the right, then you need to be using the normal traffic model (see link below).   Cost of software per year per seat
Number of hours of service per week   Cost of software per year
Number of service points   Cost of software per minute of service
         
Average work week in hours   Mean salary for librarians per hour*
      Mean salary for librarians per minute
Average length of reference transaction in minutes   Estimated labor cost per reference transaction
Reference transactions per month   Estimated total compensation per reference transaction (with fringe benefits)
Reference transactions per month charged   Estimated total labor compensation per month
      Estimated total labor compensation per year
         
Number of committee/task force/work group meetings per year      
Average meeting attendance   Estimated total cost per year
Labor cost of meetings (assuming 1 hour meetings) per year      
         
      Estimated total cost per year with facility and administrative costs included

Automatic recalculation 

*The "Mean salary of librarians per hour is taken from Table 2-1 of the National Compensation Survey: Occupational Wages in the United States, July 2002, U.S. Department of Labor, Elaine L. Chao, Secretary, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Kathleen P. Utgoff, Commissioner. September 2003. Bulletin 2561. Available at: http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/sp/ncbl0552.pdf (accessed November 6, 2003). This value was then adjusted from 2002 Dollars to 2003 dollars using the Inflation Calculator available at: http://www.bls.gov/ (accessed November 6, 2003).

Link to Normal Traffic Digital Reference Cost Model
Formulas used for calculations:

"Reference transactions per month charged" equals the quantity,"Numbers of hours of service per week" times "Number of service point" times 60 minutes per hour times 52 weeks per year, end quantity, divided by the quantity, 12 months per year times "Average length of reference transaction in minutes," end quantity.

"Labor cost of meetings (assuming 1 hour meetings) per year" equals the "Number of committee/task force/work group meetings per year" times the "Average meeting attendance" times the "Mean salary of librarians per hour."

"Cost of software per year" equals the "Number of service points" times the "Cost of software per year per seat."

"Cost of software per minute of service" equals the "Cost of software per year" divided by the quantity, 49 (assumes a 49 week year with 3 weeks of suspended service) times 60 times the "Number of service hours per week," end quantity.

"Mean salary for librarians per minute" equals "Mean salary for librarians per hour" divided by 60.

"Estimated labor cost per reference transaction" equals the "Average length of the reference transaction in minutes" times the "Mean salary for librarians per minute."

"Estimated total compensation per reference transaction (with fringe benefits)" equals the "Estimated labor cost per reference transaction" plus the quantity, "Estimated labor cost per reference transaction" times 28.3 divided by 71.7, end quantity. Note that 28.3 divided by 71.7 is the ratio of benefits to wages and salaries. Both numbers were cited in Employer Costs for Employee Compensation Summary for June of 2003 available at: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.nr0.htm (accessed November 4, 2003).

"Estimated total labor compensation per month" equals the "Reference transactions per month" times the "Estimated total compensation per reference transaction (with fringe benefits)."

"Estimated total labor compensation per year" equals the "Estimated total labor compensation per month" times 12 months times 49 weeks divided by 52 weeks.

"Estimated total cost per year" equals the "Labor cost of meetings (assuming 1 hour meetings) per year" plus the "Cost of software per year" plus the "Estimated total labor compensation per year."

"Estimated total cost per year with facility and administrative costs included" reflects an additional 56 percent added on to "Estimated total cost per year."

November 2003 -- Users are encouraged to use and comment upon this page. Users may copy the source code ONLY with the author's permission.
Disclaimer:
While all possible effort has been made to ensure the ability of the calculator to estimate the costs of synchronous digital reference service, the author cannot guarantee 100 percent accuracy since that has never been achieved. This is simply an honest academic effort to achieve a goal of providing a tool to better estimate costs that can be used by all librarians.
© 2003 by Matt Marsteller
Physics and Math Librarian
4400 Wean Hall
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
URL: http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~matthewm/vrd2003/HTDigRefCostModel.html