On Thursday, July 29, Roger Schonfeld will present on “Lessons from Library Collaborations” at the West Members Meeting. The event runs from 12:30 -2:00 pm PT. For more information, please visit the California Digital Library’s website.

About the talk:

Academic and research libraries have sought for more than a century to collaborate with one another in order to achieve wider and more efficient access to collections, generate greater negotiating power, and provide stronger systems and services. To succeed, library collaborations have had to overcome substantial structural impediments. Our transition to a pervasive digital environment has introduced new challenges and new opportunities for collaboration, including in areas of digitization, discovery, and preservation. The history of library collaboration has many lessons for us today, from unavoidable tradeoffs around governance and agility to the relative roles of community control and commercial catalysts. This talk will draw in part on Roger’s book with Deanna Marcum, to be published by Princeton University Press this September, on the history of library digitization. In the talk, Roger will provide an overview of some key lessons and leave ample time for discussion.