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Strategic Agenda

What is the Strategic Agenda?

In addition to established programs (e.g., Summit, Courier, ER, NWDA), the Orbis Cascade Alliance is exploring new directions that further the mission of the consortium. These explorations, collectively called the Strategic Agenda, are formally adopted by Council through periodic strategic planning efforts. Each strategic initiative is described below along with a current description of work and links to more information.

Looking for more information on the Strategic Agenda?

1. Cooperative Collection Development

Cooperative collection development continues to be a primary focus of development for the Alliance. Work on this set of initiatives builds on the work of the Collection Development & Management Committee and is guided by the Alliances' collection development mission statement:
As an Alliance, we consider the combined collections of member institutions as one collection. While member institutions continue to acquire their own material, the Alliance is committed to cooperative collection development to leverage member institutions' resources to better serve our users.
  • Repositories
    • Expansion of the Alliance Distributed Print Repository
    • Western Storage Trust (WEST)
      The Alliance is partnering with the University of California and other Western U.S. institutions to create the Western Storage Trust (WEST), a Mellon-funded project that will create a distributed retrospective print repository.  All members of the Alliance will become members of WEST either as direct participants or through an Alliance consortium membership.
    • Shared storage facility
      With roots in the Regional Library Services Center (RLSC) effort, the Alliance is considering the range of services desired by the membership, opportunities to build on current member library activities (for example, existing storage facilities), adaptation of existing buildings, new construction, and locations in Oregon or Washington. 
  • Implementation of a duplication threshold
  • Further adoption of the Alliance's Consortial approval plan with YBP
  • Development of a shared monographic purchasing plan
  • Exploration of consortial acquisitions workflows
  • Designating subject selectors to build collections for the Alliance as a whole

2. Future of Integrated Library Systems

In July 2011 Council voted to "proceed with procurement of a shared library management system with the intent to migrate all members to a new system."


Background
  • Network Library System Task Force

  • Other projects: Participate in and support member explorations of other open source or web-scale library technology projects, currently EOU and the Sage consortium's investigation of Evergreen. 

3. Collaborative Technical Services

The Alliance has identified shared staff as a key area for collaboration and technical services as a promising area of initial investigation, with other initiatives to follow.
Highlights include
    • Ebook pilot: cataloging consortial purchases associated with the Ebook Pilot pursued by the Collection Development and Management Committee
    • Cataloging monographs in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages
    • Collaborative Technical Services Symposium: organizing a symposium to discuss current thinking in the profession, learn about the status of similar collaborative technical services efforts undertaken by other consortia, and discuss the results of Alliance pilots.

4. Digital Initiatives

Latest update (2011 July 14): Council voted to enter in to an IR pilot project with the Colorado Alliance.

The Alliance has identified a broad range of digital initiatives as a strategic priority for the consortium.
Highlights include

5. Discovery

WorldCat
Other Discovery Systems

Background

Process

The Alliance's strategic agenda was developed over the course of late 2008 through early 2009. The process began with a survey of member libraries to determine areas where the Alliance might help members achieve their institutional strategic plans. Executive Committee condensed this very broad input to 18 initiatives which were further presented, discussed, and prioritized by the Council of library directors. Executive Committee identified a final set of five initiatives which were further researched and presented for Council discussion during a strategic planning retreat in February 2009. The retreat was facilitated by Ted Lay and included presentations by Andrew Pace (OCLC Director of Networked Library Services) and Rick Lugg (R2 Consulting).  The first set of groups working on the Strategic Agenda met in 2009 and a second set of groups worked through 2010.  Over this time the agenda has proceeded from broad investigation to more focused initiatives (e.g., from investigating legal, governance, and cost aspects of a shared ILS to issuing an RFI), implementation of pilots (e.g., Ebook Pilot, Arabic/CJK Cataloging Pilots, Fedora-based IR, Cloud Sandbox service) and pursuit of grants (e.g., IMLS grant for Cross-Search and Context Utility).

Previous Strategic Agendas