Membership

• 35 member institutions
• Oregon and Washington
• 207,000 students (full time equivalent)
  • serving 90% of all students attending four-year colleges
  • serving 20% of all students attending two-year colleges
• Community colleges, colleges, and universities
• Private and public collaboration

Summit

Union catalog and borrowing system that combines information from member libraries into a single unified database.
8.8 million titles representing 27.8 million items. 67% of these titles are unique; owned by only one member library.
335,789 books, CD's, DVD's, etc. were borrowed by students, faculty, and staff in FY06, an increase of 67% over pre-merger figures. The cost per item is about $3, compared to $14 for ILL.

Electronic resources

On an annual basis, members collectively gain access to additional electronic resources valued at $8 million each year. This program allows members the option of participating in group purchases of databases, ejournals, and ebooks supporting teaching and research. The Alliance draws on the subject expertise of member libraries along with the purchasing power of a group to achieve expanded access to electronic resources.

Northwest Digital Archives

Database providing information about archival collections in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, and Montana.

Center for Research Libraries

Students and faculty from CRL member libraries use Summit to borrow materials sent from the Center’s research collection in Chicago, Illinois.

Grants

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Meyer Memorial Trust, Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA).

Conferences & workshops

Topics include resource sharing, collection development, instruction, copyright, digital reference, electronic resource management systems, and a new academic library directors symposium.

Awards

Recipient of the 2005 NorthWest Academic Computing Consortium (NWACC) Excellence Award for outstanding IT leadership and practices among the higher education institutions of the Pacific Northwest.

Governance & Staff

The Orbis Cascade Alliance is governed by a Council composed of the library director from each of the member institutions. Council elects a seven-member Executive Committee, determines key policies, appoints committees, approves budgets, and evaluates the Executive Director. The Alliance has eight staff: Executive Director, Resource Sharing Program Manager, Resource Sharing Assistant, Electronic Resources Program Manager, Digital Services Program Manager, NWDA Program Manager, Business Manager, and Administrative Assistant.

Budget

In FY08 the Orbis Cascade Alliance has budgeted $3.5 million. The bulk of these funds are expended through group purchase of electronic resources and courier service. An operations budget is funded via membership dues, interest income, and fees paid by affiliate members of Courier, ER, and NWDA programs. Council determines membership dues, with the current formula based on a 40% flat fee and 60% student FTE weighted fee. Beyond activities included in the operations budget, all additional services are offered on an optional basis.

The Orbis Cascade Alliance receives no state funding, although Oregon and Washington public universities receive special allocations that partially offset their fees. The University of Oregon serves as fiscal agent.

New Initiatives

Regional Library Services Center: Alliance members are developing plans to construct a shared library storage facility modeled after the Harvard Depository and potentially supporting new preservation and digitizing services. Current activities include site selection, drafting of collection development policies, and determination of construction, occupancy and recurring budgets. This effort is partially supported by a planning grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

New Digital Services Program: the Alliance is hiring a Digital Services Program Manager and expects to launch this new program in March 2007.

Cooperative Collection Development: the Alliance is working to aid the development and use of member library collections as a unified collection. The scope of work includes policies and projects governing the development of physical and digital collections.

Updated Summit Interface: Alliance working groups are preparing an update to the Summit interface and investigating improved useability and more extensive changes in the features and functions of Summit.