Assignments from Council

2009-2013 Projects

Cooperative collection development continues to be a primary focus of development for the Alliance. Building on the work of the Collection Development & Management Committee (CDMC) and guided by the Alliances' historic collection development mission statement, activities in this area were expected to include:

development of a shared monographic purchasing plan
determination of a threshold for the maximum number of copies to be purchased by consortium libraries
pilot project to centrally fund a shared ebook collection
exploration of consortial acquisitions workflows
designating subject selectors to build collections for the Alliance as a whole
expansion of the Distributed Print Repository
further adoption of the Alliance's YBP agreement
Monographic vendor project, approved July 2006

The Orbis Cascade Alliance Council charges the Collection Development & Management Committee to initiate appropriate contacts with vendors, below the threshold of a formal RFP, that will result in a program of improved coordination for monograph selection within and among Alliance member libraries. Responses from each vendor will include their support for selection within a consortial environment, services, and pricing considerations. The Committee is expected to make a progress report to the Council's Executive Committee at or before its meeting on September 7, 2006, with a further progress report or proposal ready for the Council meeting in October 2006.

2006 Projects

Complete the census of cooperative projects and preserve the data on a Web page.
Continue work on the pilot project for a distributed print repository for JSTOR and ACS titles. This helps to lay the groundwork for the RLSC.
Explore a cooperative selection environment for monographs via a group contract with a vendor to maximize discount for all Alliance members. Conduct a survey of member libraries to learn about current collecting patterns and budgets. Consider sponsoring a ‘vendor day’ for member libraries. Explore using consortial tools available from vendors at Alliance libraries to select monographs from a consortial perspective. (These ideas were raised by Julie Gammon of OhioLINK at the annual committee meeting in September.)
Explore ways to use Summit better as a selection tool. Examine ILL requests for books not available within the Alliance with cooperative purchasing in mind. Study Summit catalog policies that may support cooperative collection development.
Formulate a ‘last copy’ policy for books. This also helps to lay the groundwork for the RLSC.
Explore possibilities for central funding for collection development. Possibilities include grants or contributions to a communal ‘war chest’ for joint purchases.
Encourage further development of the Alliance subject interest groups with the aim of supporting cooperative collection development.

2005 Projects

Develop collection development policies governing a shared journal and reference set archive as envisioned for the Regional Library Services Center.
Perform a census of current and past cooperative collection development projects that have been undertaken by Alliance members and provide a qualitative assessment of each project. Create a web site to capture and organize this information.
Examine ILL requests for materials that are not in the shared collection and implement a mechanism for purchasing appropriate titles.
Propose collection development and management projects for pursuit in 2006.
The CDMC is asked to submit a report and recommendations to Council concerning these topics in December 2005

Special project requested by Council at its January 2005 meeting:

Council requests that CDMC gather ILL data on journal article requests for one month to determine

number of journal articles requested from within or without the Alliance membership
number of article requests that could have been filled from within the Alliance membership
number of copies of those articles that could have been filled from within the Alliance membership
the potential effectiveness of load balancing journal article requests

CDMC is asked to complete the study by April and, to the extent practical, the committee is encouraged to provide Council with observations concerning fill rate, load balancing, and other factors related to article requesting within the consortium. (Note that April has been chosen to avoid spring break and to have information available in time for Council discussion on April 14-15).