{"id":277,"date":"2014-11-16T04:20:59","date_gmt":"2014-11-16T03:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/?p=277"},"modified":"2014-11-16T04:20:59","modified_gmt":"2014-11-16T03:20:59","slug":"heres-a-chance-to-contribute-to-some-big-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/2014\/11\/16\/heres-a-chance-to-contribute-to-some-big-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s a chance to contribute to some big questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

One thing ARL wanted to do this year is to talk about some “big questions” (and even the little ones). Our first topic is put forward by James G Neal<\/strong>, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian Columbia University.<\/p>\n

You are now invited to have a read of the information provided by Jim and then respond to the questions he has asked. \u00a0Thank you to Jim and thank you to everyone for your (future) contributions! \u00a0Let’s make it a lively discussion.<\/p>\n

The questions:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

1. How are new forms of collaboration different from the traditions of academic library cooperation?<\/p>\n

2. How do academic libraries need to change in order to participate effectively in these new relationships?<\/p>\n

3. How is library collaboration evaluated in terms of service improvements, user success, and financial cost\/benefits?<\/p>\n

The background:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Radical Collaboration:\u00a0 Academic and Research Libraries Working Together in New Ways<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cooperation is part of the DNA of the academic and research library.\u00a0 From the conditions of knowledge scarcity over the centuries to the oppression of information and data over-abundance in today\u2019s and tomorrow\u2019s library context, cooperation has been and will be a constant for service, success and survival.<\/p>\n

But the definition and view of the academic library as an independent and self-sustaining organization, collaborating and sharing resources on the margin, has persisted.\u00a0 The future health of the academic library will be increasingly defined by new and energetic relationships and combinations, and the radicalization of working relationships among libraries, between libraries and the communities they serve, and in new entrepreneurial partnerships.\u00a0 The context for collaboration and innovation is rich and powerful.\u00a0 It combines rapidly evolving user requirements, a recognition of the need to rethink redundant inefficient library operations, an increasing emphasis on unique resources, a focus on the need to achieve scale and network effects through aggregation, a mandate for systemic change, and the unprecedented economic pressures.<\/p>\n

Radical collaboration encourages academic libraries to move in four new directions.\u00a0 The first is mass production, including back-room operations like acquisitions, cataloging, electronic resource management, and preservation, for example, that might be based in regional distribution centers rather than in every individual library.\u00a0 The second is centers of excellence, deep and shared polycentric strategies for specialized expertise or services.\u00a0 The third is new infrastructure, building the technologies and functionalities for areas like digital ingestion, processing and archiving.\u00a0 The fourth is new initiatives, new programs and projects based on shared investment in experimentation.\u00a0 In all four cases, the measures of success must be quality, productivity and innovation.\u00a0 Are we producing something new, saving resources, and achieving something better together than working alone?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One thing ARL wanted to do this year is to talk about some “big questions” (and even the little ones). Our first topic is put forward by James G Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian Columbia University. You are now invited to have a read of the information provided by Jim and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":743,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/743"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions\/278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ifla.org\/arl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}