A budget for your library's technology plan needs to project costs and sources of funding over the life of the technology plan itself, showing what you plan to acquire and how you will pay for it.  Many sources, including the federal government's Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), recommend a three-year technology planning cycle.

As stated in the E-rate technology planning requirements of the USAC:

"The plan must provide for a sufficient budget to acquire and support the non-discounted elements of the plan: the hardware, software, professional development, and other services that will be needed to implement the strategy."

"Non-discounted" here refers to those portions of the budget that are not funded by grant programs such as E-rate, the Library Services & Technology Act (LSTA), and related sources.  If your library does plan to apply for E-rate funding, make sure to review E-Rate Central's Ten Rules for E-rate Success article in order to avoid some of the common "gotchas" encountered with E-rate applications.

Even if your library uses tools like Microsoft Excel or Intuit's QuickBooks for general budgeting, it can be advantageous to create a separate technology plan budget document that can be easily incorporated into your final technology plan.  There are several great tools available to help you get started:

• WebJunction's TechAtlas technology planning tools include a Budget Worksheet function that allows you to build out cost information for your technology planning objectives as you define them.  The information you enter in the Budget Worksheet is automatically incorporated in the final plan that you download from TechAtlas.
• NPower has also created some excellent Excel spreadsheet templates that you can use to create a budget for your own library.  There are three variations available depending on the size of your library:
  • Small library with approximately 1-20 staff members.
  • Medium library with approximately 20-80 staff members.
  • Large library with 80 or more staff members.