Community as Strategy

I recently attended the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) meeting in Chicago, and was reminded of how empowering it is to be with people who are doing the same work and who share a desire to use our community’s voice and resources to confront the mounting challenges that our libraries, cultural heritage organizations, and educational institutions are facing. I was also reminded that, while national community and coordination is necessary, it is our local and regional communities that give us the strength and foundation to confidently engage at that level. 
 

So we are fortunate that, since the Alliance’s founding, community has been at the heart of our identity and our praxis: intentional connections with one another as individuals and as libraries describe who we are and how we work. As the Alliance has grown, we have learned how to create sustaining structures that enable ongoing connection, co-learning, and collaboration. Both Alliance central staff and community leaders within member libraries provide the planning, continuity, and support that are essential to help sustain our shared work and connections.
 

This collective history of cultivating community has prepared us for the present moment; a moment when community is a necessary strategy for personal, institutional, and national survival. Community is needed to stand with individuals and groups who face persecution; it is needed to share resources and strategies to sustain our educational institutions in the face of financial and political attacks; and it is needed to present a unified voice to call our national leaders to account and action.
 

To further our commitment to fostering community and recognizing that needs for specific spaces and focuses are evolving this year we have established new structural support for communities of practice within the Alliance. All Alliance community members are encouraged to propose new communities of practice to the Alliance Board; approved groups will receive support from Alliance central staff.
 

Whether you engage through a community of practice, or in an Alliance group or program community or haven’t yet found your place within the Alliance I encourage you to participate in our consortium-wide Alliance Connections virtual event in July. It is an opportunity to learn from and alongside colleagues, to interact with people outside your normal sphere of work, and this year, to share ideas for where we should be going as an Alliance community. The Board and Council recently kicked off strategic planning for FY27-FY29, and I will be leading a discussion session with our incoming Board Chair, Dena Hutto (Reed), that will focus on hearing your aspirations, questions, and concerns about the Alliance as an organization and a community. We look forward to hearing from you and as always, reach out to me any time if you have questions or suggestions.

Join the collaborative team at the Orbis Cascade Alliance as the full-time Electronic Resources Specialist.

The E-Resources Specialist supports the Program Manager for Shared Content & Scholarly Communication to ensure ongoing access to electronic content for participating Alliance member and non-member affiliate libraries. The primary responsibilities for this position including managing the order and renewing processes, responding to related inquiries from library staff and vendor representatives, and serving as a resource to the Finance Manager in the processing of purchase orders and invoices.

While applicants located in the region Pacific Northwest are preferred, candidates from outside the region may be considered. The Alliance offers a competitive salary and excellent benefits. Please see the full position description on the Alliance website for details and application instructions.

Applications received by June 6 will receive priority considerations. Questions about the position can be sent to Jesse Holden: jholden@orbiscascade.org.

Registration for Alliance Connections 2025 (formerly Summer Meeting) is now open!

Alliance Connections (formerly Summer Meeting) will be held virtually in Zoom on July 22-24, 2025. Our theme this year is Foundations & Opportunities, and the program committee is excited to support the work of presenters and speakers, as well as explore opportunities for community and conversation. We’ll have presentations from Alliance member staff, talks from invited speakers, optional virtual lunches with affinity groups and/or informal topics, and conversation-focused sessions.

Questions? Contact Amy Coughenour or Elizabeth Duell.

In March 2025, the Alliance Board and Council endorsed a definition of the Alliance’s Shared Collection:

“The Orbis Cascade Alliance is committed to sharing the combined resources of our member libraries. This aggregation of all shareable resources is known as the Shared Collection. It represents a coordinated effort to expand access to a broad range of resources that support the educational mission, advance the research, and preserve the cultural heritage of Alliance members and the Pacific Northwest region. By intentionally building and maintaining the Shared Collection, the Alliance maximizes our resources to better serve our academic communities. The Shared Collection requires coordinated collection development and management decisions, shared local collections, thoughtfully developed jointly owned collections, and resource allocation to support centralized systems and services that promote coordination, efficiency, and assessment.”

Our collective understanding of the Shared Collection will advance the Alliance’s bold vision to leverage the resources of our libraries. Read more about the Shared Collection.