Folks, apparently my message got chopped off, so here it is again.

Hinda

Hinda F.Sklar
The Librarian,
and Administrative Deputy to the Chairman
Architectural Association
34-36 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3ES
England
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Tel: 020 7887 4035
Fax: 020 7414 0782
AA website: http://www.aaschool.ac.uk

I'm summarising replys to the question I asked earlier this summer about how to place an insurance value on library collections. I've tried to come up with replacement costs, using the following:

1. A message to ARLIS-L by Stephen Zeitz, Cleveland Public Library, on June 19, 2002, that I've copied here

"We at CPL insure our collections for replacement value. To determine
this value we use a variety of methods. This is particularly tricky in
Fine Arts and Special Collections which I head.
For Fine Arts we count the number of physical volumes, separating out
the music from the visual arts. We keep separate track of folios and
periodicals. We are able to determine the average cost to us of the
volumes we have acquired by purchase over the last year. For the folios,
it is necessary to sample the collection each time the insurance
evaluation comes up. We look online in abebooks.com for the resale value
of 40 to 50 folio volumes. We find a surprising number of them listed
for sale. We then average the costs. For the rare materials, last year
we hired a rarebook dealer to select items, estimate and substantiate
his estimates, and list them separately. The number of rare books thus
treated will increase as we continue doing the evaluations (we have just
started this process). Periodicals are done by average subscription
costs.
Visual arts books must be accounted for separately from music because
visual arts books tend to appreciate; music does not. I feel that as
long as the costs of new books increases, we are accounting for the
appreciation of the older stock. We have around 200,000 of these volumes
to account for, so you can imagine how large the insurance value is!
There is an equal quantity in Special Collections, so the amount of the
capital value of the book collection in Fine Arts and Special
Collections is staggering.
The method we use is perhaps a little flawed, but it does give us a very
good picture of what it would cost to replace anything we could replace.
Stephen Zietz
Fine Arts and Special Collections
Cleveland Public Library"

2. A method suggested by Carol Terry from RISD in 1997, also copied below:

For insurance purposes, we have determined the minimum replacement cost
of the library collections at RISD as follows:

Regular circulating collection @ $40
Oversized volumes @ $100
Special Collections half @$500 / half @ $1000
Vault collection @ $5000
Artists' books @$300
Bound periodicals @ $100

plus $30/volume for processing.

AV Collections:

Slides @ $5 + $5/proc.
Clippings @ $1 (we have 425,000)
Mounted reproductions @ $2
Posters @ $50
Record Albums @ $15
Compact discs @ $40
Videotapes @ $100
Microfiche sets @ $1000

The report based on these numbers was accepted by our insurance company.

Carol Terry
Rhode Island School of Design

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In the end, these are the figures I used, related to the kinds of collections we have. I've come up with a real "guesstimate", but we think the insurance company will accept it.

Regular circulating & non-circulating collection (i.e. Main library, Gallery, Book Store, etc.): £32.00/volume

Oversized volumes, circulating collection (Main, Book Store): £80.00/volume

AA Collection Main: £75.00/vol.

AA Collection Store: £32.00/vol.

Exhibition Collection, regular sized volumes: £50.00/volume

Exhibition Collection, oversized volumes: £70.00/volume

19^th Century Collection, regular sized volumes: £50.00/volume

19^th Century Collection, oversized volumes: £75.00/volume

Bound periodical volumes: £65.00/volume

Plus £20.00/volume for processing

I also did some reading of one of the ARL Spec Kits--Spec Kit 272 : Insuring and Valuing Research Library Collections.

I hope this is helpful to you all. I think the best way to do it is actually to get a dealer in that you trust and have worked with to do the valuation; we couldn't afford that, so I had to do it myself. Thank heavens for online catalogues that could provide item counts for me!