Halk Kütüphanelerinin Ekonomik Etkisi: İstanbul Orhan Kemal İl Halk Kütüphanesi için Maliyet-Yarar Analizi

Abstract

Cost-benefit analysis applications emerge as a significant tool for all types of enterprises and units, regardless of their institutional structure, whether profit-oriented or not. This tool plays a crucial role in various aspects such as enabling enterprises to act in accordance with the market economy, ensuring cost control, and producing optimal services with existing costs. This is because, even if not profit-oriented, enterprises require certain inputs to produce certain services and incur certain costs accordingly. Libraries are just one example of these non-profit organizations. Libraries produce various services within their existing budgets and offer these services directly to the community for free. However, the free provision of library services, which are subject to societal consumption, renders the value added by libraries invisible. In this study, attention is focused on this issue, and the invisible hand of libraries is aimed to be revealed in terms of market value, or in other words, the economic value of these services provided to the community is intended to be demonstrated with the example of Istanbul Orhan Kemal Provincial Public Library, and the economic value of the services provided by Istanbul Orhan Kemal Provincial Public Library in 2022 has been calculated. The aim of the study is to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the services provided by Istanbul Orhan Kemal Provincial Public Library in 2022 and to reveal the economic dimension of the social benefit it has provided. The study was conducted within the framework of the hypothesis formulated as "The economic benefit provided by the services offered by Istanbul Orhan Kemal Provincial Public Library in 2022 exceeds the cost of these services". In this context, Istanbul Orhan Kemal Provincial Public Library was determined as the study area. Cost data were obtained from Orhan Kemal Provincial Public Library with the permission of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism General Directorate of Libraries and Publications, and based on the available data, the economic benefits of the services provided to the community by the library in 2022 were calculated in five main groups: library collection, physical space usage, internet-connected computer usage, cultural activities, and reference services. According to the findings obtained in the study, the most valuable service group provided by the library in 2022 was the library collection, followed by physical space usage, cultural activities, reference services, and internet-connected computer services, respectively. As a result, Istanbul Orhan Kemal Provincial Public Library provided approximately twice the amount of service to the community, worth 2.08 TL for every 1 TL invested in it, or approximately a 208% rate of return. Thus, our hypothesis that "the economic benefit provided by the services offered by Istanbul Orhan Kemal Provincial Public Library in 2022 exceeds the cost of these services" has been confirmed.