October, 2026
Bruce Newell, Helena

Return on investment:
“Return on investment (ROI) is a performance measure
used to evaluate the efficiency or profitability of an investment.” Investopedia, online

Because Montana’s public libraries use tax dollars, library advocates must be able to make the compelling argument that their library’s’ public benefits outweigh its public costs. One common financial measure is Return on Investment (ROI).

A ballpark estimate, assuming that Montana libraries approximate the performance of libraries in other states, Montana’s libraries provide a ROI between 4-to-1 or 5-to-1, is that public libraries returned something on the order of $148 — $185 Million (M) for Montana’s 2024 $37M statewide public investment in public libraries.

October 16, 2026: Note — ROI is the ratio of cost to benefit. With ROI, it’s easy to get stuck on ‘costs’, and there are so many different kinds of costs, and to downplay ‘benefits’, not all of which are tangible. The most publicly valuable products of a library are intangible, difficult to measure and challenging to describe. ROI doesn’t describe libraries’ public good. Additionally, describing libraries’ ROI carries with it the risk of compulsively focusing on costs, instead of values. If ROI is, metaphorically, a tool in library advocates’ tool box, it’s got nasty sharp edges and is one that should be used with deliberate care.

I completed this essay in September, and then after a number of discussions, decided to replace it with an essay on determining libraries’ public value. While working on November’s public value essay I’ve continued discussing ROI with knowledgable friends, convinced me that it’s useful to contemplate both ROI and Harvard Kennedy School’s Mark Moore’s thinking on public value. Consider this simple survey of studies Part I of 2. 

Library ROI (mostly) Studies

A 2020 Wyoming State Library study that looked at Wyoming libraries found that the return on public library investment is in the $4 to $5 range. “…The Park County Library found that taxpayers received $4.28 in value for every $1 invested in the library. Natrona County Library returned $5.35 per dollar … while Teton County Library provides a return on investment of $6.21 per each $1 spent.” The Wyoming website has a number of useful links describing ROI studies.

Also in the Wyoming report, a linked 2009 Library Research Service report by Oslo University College professor Svanhild Aabø, titled Libraries and return on investment (ROI): A meta-analysis, found that “…tentative conclusion is that for each dollar invested in public libraries they return, on average, approximately four times more.”

The Utah State Library, in a 2019 study titled Utah Public Libraries Return on Investment, 2019, describes a $7.04 return on each library dollar invested.

A 2019 Texas study, Texas Public Libraries: Economic Benefits and Return on Investment, used “a conservative approach” to place a $4.64 return for every dollar invested in Texas public libraries.

An August 2021 report titled Return on Investment from Ohio Public Libraries and Comparison with Other States, prepared for the Ohio Library Council by Howard Fleeter & Associates, found a $3.94 to $1.00 return on investment for Ohio taxpayers. However, “…When economic multiplier effects are included, each $1 spent by Ohio public libraries returns a total economic value of $4.98.”

Pennsylvania found, in a 2006 study, Taxpayer Return-on-Investment [ROI] in Pennsylvania Public Libraries estimated that the Gross Regional Product ”…increases by $3.79 per dollar of public funding for public libraries. The public libraries yield a net impact of $3.14 of GRP per dollar of public funding.” A close reading of the study reveals additional benefits.

A 2006 Colorado study, Public Libraries–A Wise Investment: A Return on Investment Study of Colorado Public Libraries, found a nearly five to one “($4.99/1) return on investment. 

Conclusion

It’d be great if we had a Montana-based study of public library ROI, or if not ROI, some other similar financial metric. I strongly suspect Montana’s library ROI is likely higher than other states’, given the statewide economies and efficiencies we’ve gained through resource sharing and other forms of cooperation. 

In any event, I’d be comfortable standing up to a legislative finance subcommittee and stating, based on other state’s studies and knowing what we know about Montana libraries’ budgets and cooperative practices, statewide, Montana public libraries provide their communities at least a 4-to-1 ROI. This amounts to somewhere in excess of a $150M return on a $37M dollar tax dollar investment. Or, more pithily:

For every tax $1 invested, Montana libraries likely return at least $4.

Next month, the unexpected (to me) second part of this essay, Measuring Public Value (in libraries).

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Please support Montanans For Libraries‘ campaign to provide each Montanan with sufficient, twenty-first century library services.

Bruce Newell is an increasingly retired librarian. This essay and others like it can be found on the Montanans For Libraries website.