This study investigated ways in which the costs of a library's direct and indirect services can be equitably allocated to its heterogeneous group of institution users. It was conducted from October 1, 1974 to March 31, 1977. The final report is divided into four parts, each describing a separate issue. Part I discusses the general administrative…

Part II of the study describes a model for associating one portion of total library costs with use; the model's output is a set of charges that can be used to recover (justify) these usage-based costs. Algebraic formulations constructed and combined to form the model are a set of service charges that may vary by user type and recover out-of-pocket…

Part III of the study describes a model for completing the cost assessment (justification) process by accounting for the fixed joint costs; a "fair" and equitable mechanism is developed in the context of game-theoretic approach. An n-person game is constructed in which the "players" are the institutions served by the library,…

Part IV is a summary analysis of sample and survey data collected to facilitate the structure of the cost assessment models and to find out which, if any, subgroups of HAM-TMC user population make more (or less) use of various library services. Sampling data were obtained from brief interviews and in-house files of various user institutions to…