Although libraries have a long tradition of working together to improve their collections and related services, collaborations should not be viewed as a panacea. As the landscape of scholarly resources evolve, to be effective and tactical, collaborations need to carefully balance their collective and institutional priorities while remaining responsive to the user needs and behavior.

Today, we share a new report on the governance and business characteristics of collaborative collection development initiatives. We intentionally focus on governance models as they provide a strategic framework in support of decision making, implementation, stakeholder engagement, business planning, and sustainability, which are all fundamental to building a strong scaffolding for collaboration. This report grew from our research in support of the Collaborative Collection Lifecycle Project (CCLP), which aims to create a suite of best practices, prototype middleware, and improve standards in order to support libraries on the path towards collaborative collections development and management.

Based on the close exploration of eight collection collaborations within the United States and Canada, this guide presents a series of takeaways and examples to illustrate the characteristics of successful collaborations as well as the potential risks they face. It is based on a holistic framework, which recognizes that collection development collaborations involve a lifecycle of activities, from developing policies and best practices in support of selection, acquisition, licensing, and description of materials to facilitating discovery, access, conservation, and preservation.

Our key observations in regard to best practices include:

  • Many library collaborations have broad and value-based mission and vision statements, which need to be periodically reviewed and updated to ensure that they are aligned with current collaboration principles and correlate to clearly defined, specific outcomes.
  • Reciprocity is an important principle as member institutions need to trust that collaborations benefit both the individual institution and the whole group in equitable ways.
  • For community-based collaborations to thrive, initiative leaders must be able to inclusively address member perspectives while at the same time setting a coherent long-term strategy for the collective.
  • As transparency is promoted as an important principle for community-based initiatives, understanding and communicating the true cost of delivering programs enables collaborations to make clear decisions and choices about the value and priority of their services.
  • There is no single ideal governance model for library collaborations—the structure should be based on the goals of the partnership and the characteristics of the member institutions.

There is a vibrant range of library collaboration designed to expand individual libraries’ capacity, influence, and reach. In a future blog, we will present a typology of collaboration model characteristics to highlight the attributes that have the most impact on an initiative’s success and sustainability.

The Collaborative Collection Lifecycle Project is funded through the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership Grant for Libraries, awarded to the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), the Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration & Innovation (PALCI), Lehigh University Libraries, and Ithaka S+R, along with 27 other partner organizations.

 

The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.