Economic Analyses of Federal Scientific Collections: Methods for Documenting Costs and Benefits

Federal collections have been created to serve agency missions and, in a few cases, to comply with legislative and regulatory mandates. The benefits generated by federal scientific collections can take monetary and non-monetary forms, and are usually indirect and delayed. The value chains that connect costs to benefits are generally difficult to document. This report describes five methodologies that are available for describing and estimating the benefits federal collections generate. Departments and agencies can use the methods described for evidence-based decisions concerning policies and management practices for their institutional collections.