Governance and Business Models for Collaborative Collection Development

Libraries have a long and strong tradition of joining forces to accomplish goals that are beyond the reach of a single institution. As Lorcan Dempsey has identified, libraries collaborate—often through consortia—in order to build capacity, scale influence, and leverage collective solutions.^{^[1]} However, collaborations should not be viewed as a panacea. Building successful partnerships is a demanding undertaking. To be effective, library collaborations focused on collection development need to be responsive to the changing landscape of scholarly resources as well as the evolving nature of research, teaching, and learning. The purpose of this report is to further increase our understanding of the governance and business characteristics of collaborative collection development initiatives, and how the attributes of different business models can affect the outcomes of collaborations. 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.

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. They share common goals including:

Scaling influence in negotiations with service and content providers to secure better terms and pricing and foster advocacy in scholarly communication
Coordinating cooperative purchasing of electronic resources
Developing new systems, applications, or workflows to deliver effective collection-based services that are often beyond the reach of a single institution
Facilitating resource sharing among member institutions through interlibrary loan programs and reciprocal borrowing privileges
Supporting efficient use of collection storage and preservation space and related staffing through joint facilities and services
Engaging in disaster planning to develop strategies to conserve and preserve collections
Supporting distributed print and microfilm archiving
Supporting institutional and subject repositories for digital materials through implementation of joint content management and preservation systems
Supporting the development and management of open educational resources
Sharing expertise to exchange ideas, keep up with new developments pertaining to different facets of collections, and facilitate training
Developing joint strategies for supporting new program areas
Offering professional development, leadership forums, and information exchange

This guide presents a series of takeaways and examples to illustrate the characteristics of successful collaborations as well as the potential risks they face. Rather than focusing on enabling technologies, we consider how collaborations start, evolve, function, engage members, and are sustained over time. To inform this guide we closely observed eight collaborations within the United States and Canada:

Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust (EAST): Founded in 2015, EAST’s more than 170 members together work to secure the print scholarly record in support of teaching, learning, and research, maximize retention commitments, and facilitate access.
HathiTrust: Launched in 2008, and now with 213 supporting members, HathiTrust’s mission is to contribute to research, scholarship, and the common good by collaboratively collecting, organizing, preserving, communicating, and sharing the record of human knowledge.
Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation (IPLC): IPLC is a voluntary union of 13 academic libraries with strategic priorities including collaborative collection development, resource sharing and discovery, and leadership to change the scholarly communication system.
Ontario Council of University Library (OCUL): OCUL, an academic library consortium with 21 member libraries, supports collective purchasing, shared digital information infrastructure, advocacy, assessment, and professional development.
Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID): With over 1,200 members, ORCID is a global initiative to enable transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their contributions, and affiliations.
Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN): Founded in the 1930s, TRLN is a collaboration of four research libraries from North Carolina committed to marshaling members’ financial, human, and information resources through cooperative efforts.
Virginia’s Academic Library Consortium (VIVA): Founded in 1994, VIVA, a consortium of 71 academic libraries in Virginia, supports cooperative purchasing, shared e-resources and print, and open and affordable course content initiatives.

In addition, to examine collection development collaborations in area studies, we explored three Southeast Asia initiatives:

Center for Research Libraries Global Collections, Southeast Asia Materials Project (SEAM): Established in 1972, SEAM preserves and provides access to rare or unique resources from Southeast Asia by microfilming or acquiring films of topical materials and has 27 members.
Committee on Research Materials on Southeast Asia (CORMOSEA): Established in 1969, CORMOSEA is composed of 17 research institutions to enhance and coordinate national efforts to collect and disseminate research materials on Southeast Asia.
Library of Congress Cooperative Acquisitions Program for Southeast Asia (CAP-SEA): Established in 1962, the CAP-SEA program acquires, catalogs, and distributes content from countries that are essentially unavailable through conventional acquisition methods.

Appendix B includes information about our research methodology, including information about the Collaborative Collections Lifecycle Project (CCLP). Ithaka S+R has contributed to the project, which is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, by conducting research on different governance and collaboration models that support successful planning, decision making, implementation, and sustainability. This report includes a summary of our related discussions and findings.

Appendix C includes brief profiles of the collaborations, which were developed through desk research and interviews with 50 collaboration leaders and member library staff. Throughout the report, we refer to collection development collaborations as collaborative initiatives or collaborations and to participants of those projects as member institutions or member libraries. Given the different organizational models of the entities we profile, this terminology aims to refer to them uniformly in the aggregate analysis.

Best Practices for Collaborative Collection Development Initiatives

Management and Governance of Collaborations

Aligning Vision, Mission, and Leadership Style

Collaborations are effective and efficient only if they manage to support libraries’ strategic goals and priorities over time. Given the numerous changes in how libraries acquire, provide access to, and preserve scholarly resources, collaborations focused on collections have been especially challenged to pivot in a nimble and timely manner. 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. For instance, HathiTrust was established in 2008 to address the long-term access and preservation of materials digitized through the Google Digitization Project. Since then, the supporting membership has grown substantially and the environment in which it works has changed significantly. HathiTrust has recently initiated a strategic visioning process to identify future directions.^{^[2]}

Collaborative initiatives that were originally designed for the print era, such as CORMOSEA, face challenges in achieving the degree of collective action and scale needed to thrive in the digital environment. CORMOSEA members’ collective efforts are geared almost entirely on print collections. Although individual member institutions have begun collecting born digital materials (with the aid of tools like Archive-It), there are no shared objectives or defined commitments to organize the partnership in a scalable manner. The emerging needs that stem from the changing collections landscape may necessitate either limiting the scope of the collaboration or assessing how the scope could be enhanced to support new programs. The recent dissolution of the SUNY Libraries Consortium, for example, demonstrates that some collaborative initiatives may become unnecessary because of changing value propositions or scale, or because they have outgrown their original purpose.^{^[3]} Another example might be the mergers of various consortia over recent years.

Interviewees provided examples to illustrate how strategic change is particularly challenging when member needs, priorities, and policies are aligned only for the original collaborative purpose. For example, collective print monograph collections, especially for retrospective materials, require adequate integrated library systems to support acquisition, discovery, access, and use—as well as administrative processes such as invoicing and reporting. If the collaboration mission is deeply rooted in print collecting and the physical proximity of member libraries, this may inadvertently impede the development of new access models for digital collections. For instance, while the TRLN members leverage geographic proximity in their collaborations, it is not clear if the proximity provides a significant advantage for collection development in a primarily digital environment, or whether those needs may be better served and scaled by other partnerships. In particular, collaborations formed originally for print collections may need to be assessed periodically to evaluate if their governance and business models still support their current priorities. EAST, for example, is exploring new ways to expand its lending and digitization networks in response to a 2020 survey where its members stressed the need for the consortium to facilitate digital access to shared print content.^{^[4]}

The essential qualifications for the leader of a collection development initiative are dependent on the goals and desired outcomes of the initiative. As we spoke with different stakeholders engaged in collection development partnerships, several noted that the leadership skills needed to run a partnership vary based on the desired collaboration outcomes. Some initiatives benefit from having a transformational leader who is a creative thinker and an idea generator to envision, inspire, guide, and secure buy-in from different stakeholders. This leadership style is often most valued in the start-up phases of collaborations. Other partnerships, however, might benefit from a more managerial leadership style from an individual with the type of project management skills necessary to implement, develop, and sustain initiatives with stronger accountability.

Adequate leadership skills matter not only for mobilizing and initiating a new collaboration but also for maintaining momentum, especially in an environment in which libraries often have multiple opportunities for participating in collaborative work. Most importantly, the leadership style needs to align with the internal dynamics of an initiative, whether to facilitate its ongoing management and sustainability or to undertake new goals. Two recent director appointments showcase different priorities. OCUL, with its heavy emphasis on technological development, announced in 2022 that its new director would “shap[e] technologies and service activities.”

Committees and working groups should be composed of individuals with relevant qualifications. ORCID’s strategy for identifying and appointing board members illustrates the importance of taking into consideration the different skill sets required for decision-making and execution. ORCID seeks board members who together have complementary experiences in business development, product knowledge, and the research community. The appointment process also looks for a balance in geographies, gender, sector representation, career stage, and racial and ethnic backgrounds.^{^[5]} The importance of representing a diversity of perspectives on the board was also highlighted as an important principle by some interviewees.

A collaboration must be prepared for leadership changes with a succession planning process in place. Successful collaborations often start with people who are passionate about a cause and know how to secure buy-in. This model was the basis of many library collaborations, still active today, that were started by passionate leaders. However, collaborative initiatives that are wholly based on the vision and energies of one key actor can be risky, as collaboration can crumble when that individual leaves the organization. Also, sustaining engagement is difficult if the vision is not internalized across members and if the collaboration lacks a value proposition or incentives for participation. In small organizations, there is often no one ready to step into the leadership role. Frequent changes in library leadership might place institutional commitments at risk for member organizations. Candid conversations about the impact of leadership changes on collaborations and strategies can mitigate risks and help in setting expectations for incoming leadership.

Authority, Accountability, and Value Proposition

Although it is necessary to seek community input to secure buy-in for collective action, it is also critical to have a management structure in place with a clear locus of authority to make decisions and assume responsibility for the outcomes. The management team needs to be empowered to act on the collaboration’s vision and take responsibility for its desired outcomes or products, whether they are successful or not. The extent of a leader’s authority may vary depending on the level of responsibility granted to working groups and committees associated with an initiative. Nevertheless, the overall organizational structure needs to function in the aggregate with a clear understanding of who is ultimately in charge, whether a single individual or a group composed of several stakeholders. 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. Further, they need leaders with the authority to break stalemates when needed. There is also a necessary balance in how much oversight the executive leader is granted versus the distributed leadership responsibilities held by the board or steering committees. Having a well-defined governance model is critical to supporting this decision-making capacity of collaborative efforts.

Library collaborations can be governed in a variety of ways, including by executive leadership teams, appointed boards, or working groups. Several interviewees noted that some collaborations intentionally keep the leadership imprecise to allow member institutions to remain autonomous without any significant binding commitments. For example, IPLC is structured as a confederation where each member governs itself but agrees to work together for common causes under the leadership of the library directors’ group, composed of university librarians and deans. Although this configuration supports the member institutions’ need to be independent, it also can make collective action more challenging, especially if it requires building common ground and seeking consensus. ORCID’s board provides a different accountability model. It oversees the development and ensures the implementation of the strategic, financial and operating plans to achieve ORCID’s mission while delegating the day-to-day management of the organization to the executive director.

According to our interviewees, trust in collective action and the importance of building both interpersonal and institutional trust are key to building successful collaborations. Sustaining trust is especially difficult in partnerships that experience frequent staff and member institution turnover. This necessitates not only having faith in the leadership and management skills of a collaboration’s staff but also having faith that each member organization will be an effective partner, contributing to set goals. 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. This is evident in the makeup of the CORMOSEA community, for which there is no formal commitment between institutions, but members strive to pursue projects that benefit the community at large. This model works as the initiative is heavily driven by the efforts of a small group of curators specializing in Southeast Asia area studies who have a tradition of working closely with each other. On the other hand, when partners from different organizations come together to tackle important strategic challenges, especially if they are coming from different types of libraries, trust may be harder to achieve. To mitigate this, ORCID’s 10 Founding Principles were codified before any employees were hired or an ORCID board was put into place in order to establish effective cross-stakeholder communications from the start.^{^[6]}

As library roles and responsibilities continue to evolve, collaboration leaders need to systematically demonstrate the return-on-investment. The incentive for participation in a collections initiative involves not only financial benefits but also presents opportunities for joining forces to attain goals that are beyond the reach of an individual organization. For example, OCUL’s Scholars Portal program provides shared technology and collections for preservation and access to licensed digital content on behalf of their members and supports research data management and sharing platform for the deposit, sharing, and visualization of research data collected by members.^{^[7]} This service requires collective action and provides significant value to member libraries. VIVA shares examples of its return on investment to its members and funders. Since it was founded, VIVA has recorded over $1 billion USD in cost avoidance. This represents money saved over what would have been spent had each individual public institution acquired resources independently. VIVA also levels the playing field across VIVA institutions by extending access to these resources to all of Virginia’s students and faculty.

Governance and Organizational Status

Governance models provide a framework for an organization’s policies, procedures, and decision-making processes. Behind each library collaboration is a different organizational and financial infrastructure that supports and sustains the operation.^{^[8]} The differences in governance models have implications for the collaboration as the model provides a framework for activities and for the relationships between member institutions. Hierarchical governance models are uncommon among library-based collection development collaborations. The preferred approach is a collaborative governance model where the decision-making authority is distributed among multiple stakeholders through bylaws and operational principles. This model emphasizes cooperation and engagement among various stakeholders, especially given the fact that the success of many collection collaborations is dependent on the cooperation of member libraries. Table 1 illustrates the different governance types we encountered through our research. 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. The governance model also should be periodically assessed to ensure that it continues to provide an effective framework for success.

Table 1: Governance Model Types

Governance Type	Characteristics
Centralized Model	Executive director holds the overall responsibility for decision making and execution and is supported by advisory boards and committees composed of individuals from member organizations.
Decentralized Model	Program manager or an executive committee coordinates the work of the different groups involved in programs and services offered by the collaboration. Decision-making authority is delegated to individual project managers or teams, often through the appointment of working groups and committees with specific sets of tasks.
Distributed Model	Work is facilitated by a coordinator who is often appointed for a given duration of time by the membership. The level of participation by member libraries in individual programs is on a voluntary basis.

Depending on the governance model, there might be a need for agreements or memoranda of understanding to articulate and formalize the commitments of member libraries, and the coordination needs to support shared decision-making and implementation. The Southeast Asia initiatives that we examined (CORMOSEA, CRL-SEAM, CAP-SEA) operate under a distributed model where the level of participation is often determined by the curator of member libraries. While this allows institutions to participate as they are able, one of the risks behind this model is transitioning existing commitments and institutional memory when new staff are appointed or the organization is restructured. Regardless of the collaboration model type, having clearly articulated and agreed upon statements of purpose and expectations around decision-making are of primary importance for remaining on the same page with collaborators.

The organizational structure of an initiative also affects its governance model. An independent entity, such as a 501c(3), is likely to have more autonomy for setting strategic directions and engaging new partners and potential funders, allowing more autonomy for fundraising and exploring new models for sustainability. However, this might entail more administrative overhead for supporting indirect services such as human resources, accounting, communication, facilities, and systems. Whereas a collaborative initiative hosted by a mission-aligned larger organization, such as a university library, can leverage the broader administrative and technical infrastructure of the home institution. VIVA, for instance, is a decentralized organization: George Mason University houses its central office, and its procurement office is located at James Madison University. For collaborations with significant dependence on a hosting institution’s technical or policy frameworks, however, this type of model may limit its potential for change and growth, especially as demand for its services matures and may diverge over time from the mission of the host organization. For instance, after transitioning from a grant-funded project to a self-funded program dependent on membership fees within the Boston Library Consortium (BLC), EAST was recently granted tax exempt status as an independent 501(c)(3).^{^[9]} This change is intended to increase the organization’s flexibility to dedicate resources to its strategic areas of focus, secure EAST’s organizational sustainability by considering different funding sources, and broaden its membership beyond the geographic scope of BLC.

Business Models

The term business model refers to an organization’s plan for generating revenues to support the operation. Business models help both new and established collaborations to anticipate trends and challenges ahead. Collection collaborations are primarily mission-driven, and they are assessed based on their impact in the community—for example the extent to which they expand collective purchasing power, invest in systems for resource sharing, and support new and equitable publishing models. Nevertheless, it is also important to assess collaborations based on the effectiveness of their business model in securing the required resources to accomplish their goals. Each of the models described below have strengths and weaknesses as they apply to the specifics of running various services or addressing particular constituent needs. The collaborations we examined illustrated the range of business models used to generate funds in order to support collaborative projects; in some cases they use a single model, and in others they rely on a combination of fundraising methods, as illustrated in Table 2.

Table 2: Business Models

Business Model	Characteristics
Institutional Membership with Annual Fees	This model is based on a flat fee across institutions, which guarantees steady revenue. This can present a potential problem with inequality if all institutions (of different sizes) pay the same fee regardless of whether all the services offered are relevant. In some cases, the fees assessed are based on attributes of member institutions (e.g., collection size, annual budget, institutional type, etc.) and structured on a sliding fee.^{^[10]}
Fee-for-Service	Cost-share through one-time or ongoing fees to support specific services such as e-resource licensing, collaborative technology development, or participating in specific projects such as Web archiving.
Sponsorship	Involves one or more participating institutions supporting a collaboration through contributions such as in-kind support for some indirect expenses for the operation (such as office space, human resources, accounting, legal advice, etc.)
One-Time Funds	Grants and one-time funds from various funding organizations and foundations often support service design and product development, especially in early stages of work.
Federal or State Funding	One-time or annual funds allocated by governmental organizations to support a mission-aligned initiative.
Volunteer Labor	Member libraries (or hosting institutions) contribute staff time to support various collaborative work. This labor is often undocumented and sometimes difficult to quantify.

Collaborations should have a comprehensive budget that captures the true cost of programs, including both direct costs and those provided indirectly or in-kind. Among the collaborations we examined, only a handful made available a comprehensive budget that captures the full range of expenses, including in-kind contributions, on their website. VIVA, which receives significant support through the Virginia General Assembly, is one exception. It maintains a webpage about its funding sources and expenses.^{^[11]} 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. A recent pair of blog posts on the Scholarly Kitchen highlight the challenges print retention programs face in calculating the full cost of operations and assessing their impact for libraries.^{^[12]}

Sustainability and Lifecycle Management

Transitioning pilot projects into ongoing, sustainable programs requires careful consideration for library collaborations. Our interviewees indicated that the initiation and start-up phases of projects often rely on temporary funding, leaving the longevity of the collaboration at risk. ORCID’s 10-year history, for instance, details its early efforts to gather support and transition to sustainable funding.^{^[13]} After the project was first announced in 2009 as a collaborative effort by publishers of scholarly research, it was incorporated in 2010 and launched in 2012 with the financial support of startup loans from the publishing community and grants and sponsorships from several organizations. Following its start-up phase, ORCID established a membership program and secured support from over 1,200 member organizations, including universities, research institutions, publishers and professional associations, funders, government agencies, service providers, and other stakeholders in the research ecosystem. Grant funding is effective for initiating new collaborative projects, but only on a time-limited basis. To sustain collaborative programs, eventually more permanent and diverse sources of funding must be attained. Conversion from one model of funding, for example in a start-up phase, can be difficult for many organizations to navigate when the time arises.

It is critical that the work plan and funding also consider the entire lifecycle of needs; otherwise the collaboration may be at risk. Increasing acquisitions budgets for new topical areas of interest without commensurate support for new materials, including for cataloging and preserving the acquired collections, may leave users unable to utilize new collections. As the IPLC’s collective collection programs for Brazil, Latin America, and Contemporary Composers demonstrate, such efforts tend to be small in scale involving only some members, making it hard to factor in the entire collection lifecycle in a systematic way. Interviewees from shared print partner institutions cited cataloging support for non-English language materials as an especially pressing area for libraries, along with preservation support to ensure individual institutions were continuing their commitments to print retention. In this regard the IDEA Funding put into place by TRLN, to increase support for member institutions’ diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility work is admirable in that it may be utilized for a variety of purposes, including accessibility audits, translation costs, and digitization.^{^[14]}

Periodic and iterative review of collaborations is important so that, if necessary, they can be sunsetted if they are no longer meeting institutional needs. For instance, HathiTrust’s US Federal Documents Program was established to provide enduring access to the published record of the US government in a non-commercial, library-managed environment. After a review process, the US Federal Documents Registry’s public interface, which was intended to provide an inventory of all known published federal documents for searching purposes, was discontinued in April 2023 due to low use.^{^[15]} OCUL provides another example of timely assessment. After starting as a shared repository infrastructure for social sciences research data as a Scholars Portal service, the service providers continued to assess durable infrastructure options. As a result, the service was migrated to Borealis to support its ongoing sustainability as the national research data management and sharing platform for deposit, sharing, and visualization of research data.^{^[16]} Whether to discontinue or transition a service requires assessing its value to member institutions and the extent to which it helps the organization meet its overall aims.

Needs, Engagement, and Priorities of Partnering Organizations

Communications Strategies

Governance and communications are deeply intertwined for community governed organizations that are based on an institutional membership model.^{^[17]} Communication is vital and requires deliberately designed strategies, especially when the membership entails a heterogenous group of institutions. The variations among the member institutions, including whether they are research universities, colleges, or community colleges, have an impact on collaborative decision making, resource commitment, and sustained engagement. Bringing in and accommodating stakeholders with differing needs requires establishing clear and consistent communication channels and tools. For instance, liberal arts college libraries might have different priorities than research university libraries when it comes to supporting open access through subsidizing Article Processing Fees. Recognizing this, to build common ground and transparency, VIVA relies on a collection assessment tool called Value Metric to communicate the current and evolving priorities of the consortium (as outlined by the VIVA Steering Committee), including statewide relevance, support for VIVA’s values, curriculum alignment, cost effectiveness, user experience, and product administration.^{^[18]} With many stakeholders with varying priorities, a tool like Value Metric allows individual institutions to remain informed of VIVA’s evolving strategies in ways that maintain institutional engagement.

Balancing Institutional Versus Collective Needs

Our interviewees repeatedly described how meeting the needs of institutional users continues to be the highest priority for member libraries. Individual interviewees often recognized that a model that prioritizes local or institutional circumstances might not be sustainable as it is impossible for any single institution to build comprehensive collections, even within a focused topic. Nonetheless, local pressures, especially the needs of an institution’s faculty and researchers, are still paramount in determining collecting areas of priority. This was most visible in the collections of the CORMOSEA institutions. Some member libraries were hesitant to divide up subject areas for local curation or rely on interlibrary loan between institutions as this does not provide immediate access to local library users at the point of need. These pressures are so strong that they sometimes outweigh collaborative opportunities, despite the good intentions of member institutions to participate for the benefit of the larger collective. While several initiatives examined within this project support building a collaborative collection with pooled funding on certain topics (that is, outside of broad collective licensing for e-journals), these collective efforts were not yet mature or robust enough to assuage individual institutional pressures.

In order to leverage collaborative services and systems, member libraries must be able to adopt new procedures, workflows, and systems. The VIVA Curriculum Driven Acquisitions program aims to reduce the cost of course materials for Virginia students by matching titles on bookstore lists to e-books available for purchase or already held in VIVA shared e-book collections.^{^[19]} However, some libraries are not able to participate in the curriculum-driven acquisitions program because it is complicated to implement on the ground. It requires faculty buy-in and the willingness of the bookstore to work with the library. Resource constraints and complexity of implementation are two important barriers to adoption.

Expectations around implementing shared technology solutions can present another area of tension. Many libraries have seen a reduction in technology staff since the pandemic, and technical services is an area in which many library directors anticipate further reductions in staffing within the next five years.^{^[20]} Unless collaborations are providing turnkey solutions, it may therefore be difficult for some member institutions to implement or configure new technology products or services. Individual libraries may also be hesitant to make modifications to institutional workflows or systems that are required for collaborative participation and may look to consortial staff for assistance with this work. Some technology-based projects continue to be too focused on the initial needs assessment and consensus-building phase, without sufficient consideration for ongoing maintenance, development, and sustainability.

Several interviewees mentioned the successes of the FOLIO and ReShare initiatives as a means of developing shared infrastructure services but also some of the projects’ shared challenges in accommodating the requirements of different, heterogenous member libraries. Technology-based collaborations need to balance setting common requirements of value to everyone with fulfilling the institutional needs of member organizations that stem from the local infrastructures and workflows.

Impact of Collaborations on Staff

The potential consequences of collaboration on employment is another area of tension. Some interviewees were concerned that local staff could become redundant as services are consolidated. Several collaborations now manage low-usage print collections in shared, offsite storage, for instance, reducing the number of staff necessary for this work at individual institutions. As collaborations are established, it is essential to understand the concerns of member library staff and address them responsibly and candidly. It is natural for some staff to feel left out or unclear about the project goals or outcomes, and this can impede full participation. Efforts to replace duplicative efforts should also involve an assessment of professional growth opportunities for staff, whether in supporting multiple institutions or focusing on local priorities. Ideally, libraries should pair collaboration work with additional professional development opportunities to signal staff significance to the organizations involved.

Collaborative relationships may expand opportunities for networking and professional growth for member library staff. Many interviewees cited the broad scope of opportunities available through their library’s collaborative relationships. These opportunities range from networking and expanded professional development training to the chance to work closely and learn from other individuals within the collaboration in working groups, committees, or other professional collaborations. TRLN, for instance, maintains a robust calendar for networking and training opportunities for staff of member institutions.^{^[21]} A challenging but promising idea is to hire cross-institutional staff members to bring efficiencies to talent acquisitions and retention, supervisory overhead, and communication. By doing so, libraries will be able to afford hiring an expert workforce that possesses the softer skills necessary for constructive communication and collaboration. This also allows the salary savings from joint hires to create a professional development pool to be used by any staff impacted by the consolidation of positions.

Labor as a Limiting Factor

Some libraries may not be in a position to staff and deploy collaborative solutions locally due to staff labor limitations. As they engage in collaborations, member libraries need to understand the internal staffing requirements of initiatives in order to effectively participate. Because of staffing and budget cuts over the last several years, libraries’ bandwidth for committing to multiple collaborations has further diminished. Limited staff capacity at many libraries points especially to the need for new, collaborative staffing models to become more prevalent. We heard several examples of how budget and labor limitations are affecting collaborative projects. Reductions in technical services staff, for instance, has an impact on the local implementation of shared services, especially if the projects rely on staff for bibliographic control and metadata creation. The Southeast Asian studies collaborations, faced with a shortage of catalogers with the requisite language skills, are having to rely on other staff and student assistants to process their collections without the oversight of professional cataloging leaders. Effective participation in collaborations, however, can help libraries balance quotidian with new strategic areas of focus.

Product management and project management skills within libraries are important for both internal and collaborative projects, but staff may not possess these skills. This is another example of how collaborations must take into account the attributes of the staff they do have. Member libraries need to understand the nature of the institutional commitment and the resources and authority required to support the implementation. For instance, a project representative within a member organization needs to have the authority and resources to fulfill the institution’s obligations. Also, it’s important to recognize that the skill sets essential to initiate a new collaborative project can be very different from the qualifications needed to sustain the project. Therefore, it is important to periodically assess the staffing needs and adjust accordingly.

One universal theme across our interviews was the challenge of relying on volunteer labor. While some collaborations support several dedicated staff who coordinate projects among institutions, committees, and working groups, many depend on volunteers from member libraries to advance the work. There are several issues with this structure, including that individuals who volunteer may be overcommitted, especially if they are participating in multiple projects at one time. Contributions to collaborative work may or may not be codified within an individual’s job description, so their available time—and the value placed on this work by the institution—is variable. As collaborative projects progress, reliance on volunteer labor means that timelines may slip or outcomes may need to be adjusted as staff need to allocate their time towards other library priorities. Projects that rely on volunteer labor or the pooling of collaborative resources also inherently move at a slower pace than those that rely on dedicated staff and funding. Our interviewees made clear that libraries at present have too many competing priorities and too little labor to devote to collaborative projects in a volunteer capacity. Including time earmarked for collaborative projects within job descriptions ensures transparency around this responsibility, clarifies the associated staff capacity, and signals institutional commitment. Transparent project documentation, including established timelines and roles for volunteer contributions, can help protect against scope creep and delays.

Collection-based collaborations require not only different tools and systems to be able to compare institutional holdings, identify partnership domains, and manage records for collective collections but also staff with the necessary skill sets to leverage them. Transactions such as ingesting metadata to a shared database are often tricky and require multiple tools to do bits and pieces, including even the basic task of comparing holdings across institutions. Preparing locally digitized materials for ingesting, for instance, requires customized ingest paths across projects such as HathiTrust, Internet Archive, and others. Collective collection development initiatives using a common repository need to record best practice data, such as retention commitments, number of copies retained, access requirements for digitally shared digital content, environmental control of storage, and more. The complexity of these processes, combined with libraries’ limited labor, may prevent some institutions from fully participating in analysis or project work. Shared training across members, however, can help mitigate these challenges, as OCUL has demonstrated within its Collaborative Futures initiative, which aims to implement a shared next generation library services platform to collectively manage and preserve electronic and print resources.^{^[22]}

Supporting the lifecycle of various types of collections, whether from selection to purchasing, from physical or digital storage, or at the resource sharing stage, requires structured and machine-readable records to support the identification, discovery, use, and long-term management of resources. Normalized, quality metadata still underpins many of the foundations of collective collecting and management and causes individual institutions to expend more labor at the institutional level than should be necessary. Identifying, getting, and utilizing appropriate metadata for print holdings is complicated, expensive, and sometimes impossible, especially for libraries with limited resources. Interviewees provided examples to illustrate that the lack of equitable access to holdings metadata is a critical obstruction to many collaborative print-based projects. They also noted that the current tools designed to assuage this problem and help libraries make informed selection, transfer, and retention decisions are often not affordable or too labor intensive for libraries to utilize. Collaborations have a critical role to play in metadata challenges; EAST, for example, is assisting its member libraries to undertake analysis of their collections via the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries’ Gold Rush tool.

Social Change Agenda

Supporting new or evolving priority areas such as Open Access, DEIA-related initiatives, or responsiveness to climate change necessitates new funding, workflows, and/or dedicated staffing support. A number of libraries are increasingly interested in developing collections with an emphasis on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). Diversifying collections in practice is no easy task, and many institutions are looking for collaborative support in putting new or expanded DEIA goals into practice. Some challenges in this area relate to the acquisition of new materials. While many vendors have expanded their efforts to identify and promote resources that align with DEIA objectives, it is still not always easy for institutions to identify resources that may meet their criteria. Libraries are also increasingly thoughtful about how best to acquire resources in ways that support diverse communities or authors. There can also be inadvertent contradictions in collecting for DEIA; for instance, if shared collections development efforts reduce redundancy of copies across institutions, this may harm small or regional publishers by reducing sales. Individual institutional constraints, such as lack of dedicated funding or the inability to enhance and promote discovery of new collections, may also benefit from a larger collaborative initiative’s support.

One of the 2022-2025 priorities of OCUL is supporting Indigenous reconciliation to assist its members’ ongoing work to advance the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Calls to Action.^{^[23]} Offering competitive funding for broad initiatives that establish or advance DEIA-related initiatives at the discretion of the institution well meets the emerging needs in this area. However, facilitating effective discovery and access mechanisms to newly acquired materials continues to be work-in-progress across the initiatives we studied.

Whether individual member institutions or collaborations might better support open access is also a pressing question. Many library interviewees wish to put additional attention and efforts into supporting and promoting open access, both at the institutional level and beyond. With frequent developments in open access publishing of both e-journals and e-monographs, it is difficult for some institutions to navigate changes on their own. New policy mandates plus emerging types of agreements also bring new responsibilities to libraries. Helping individual institutions keep pace with these multitudinous changes is an area of need, including the potential for collectively negotiating transformative agreements, and one for which several collaborations through their open access committees are playing an increasingly important role. For example, one of IPLC’s three strategic priorities is collaborative leadership and advocacy to change the scholarly communication system.^{^[24]} One general challenge in OA-based collaborations is whether the existing groups have the right configuration and resources to register significant progress towards sustainable scholarly communication models.

Several interviewees noted that collaborations across the country could potentially help to assess and mitigate risks associated with climate change. While libraries play an important role in promoting awareness of climate change, the long-term integrity of their collections is also increasingly at risk. Developing better tools to redistribute collections across institutions in geographically disparate areas is a pressing need, and one that collaborative initiatives are considering how best to address. For print retention collaborations, the potential implications of climate change for collections may require rethinking objectives to add focus to protecting libraries in floodplains or other geographic areas prone to increasing climate disasters.^{^[25]}

Conclusion

A vibrant range of library collaborations focus on collection development. As these collaborations proliferate, there is increasing pressure to differentiate these partnerships to clearly articulate their unique value. Member libraries understand the importance of partnerships in expanding their capacity, influence, and reach, and remain interested and committed to continue them. For libraries with fewer financial resources, and those serving historically underrepresented and underserved communities, access to shared materials makes a significant difference in the breadth of collections available to their faculty and students.

Collaborations need to have agile governance and business models in order to sustain the engagement of member organizations and respond to the changing landscape of scholarly resources, service models, and user needs. Given the prevalence of academic library collaborations, it is important to assess their contributions within the context of the new collections lifecycle, especially to understand how they can remain responsive to the evolving nature of research, teaching, and learning. Also critical is being able to differentiate collaborations to create synergies through collective work and reduce unnecessary administrative redundancies. Considering the obstacles and impediments to cooperative work, we observe that only a few of them are the result of purely technical challenges. Rather, most of them stem from well-recognized yet unresolved strategic, governance, and business model impediments.^{^[26]} Across the examples we have examined, there were only a handful of fruitful collaborations that involved commercial vendors or publishers. Some interviewees felt that there was potential for more engagement with this sector to advance and benefit collaborations whereas some brought up concerns due to trust issues, especially concerns about the business models behind commercial entities. Trust is built when collaborators share the same expectations, maintain similar levels of transparency, and align around each other’s true incentives.

As we conclude, we want to highlight the following attributes of successful collaborations:

Board members are intentionally nominated and appointed, taking into consideration the specific skills they bring and communities they represent. For library collaborative initiatives, this may include representatives from heterogeneous institutions, varying project or budgetary skill sets, or the ability to speak to a multiplicity of user needs.
Community building, networking, professional growth, and training programs are important for ensuring buy-in and engagement. Staff from member institutions deeply value these opportunities for engaging with peers about the challenges of building and managing collections.
In a crowded marketplace, library administrators and staff must be able to understand the continued value of collections collaborations. Successful initiatives utilize both quantitative and qualitative metrics to assess and communicate their return on investment and value.
Business models must be dynamic, especially in response to monitoring and managing key financial, reputational and technological risks.
Services and programs must evolve to stay relevant for every stage of a collaboration, from prototyping/piloting to implementation/production, to maintenance, to research and development, to reengineering, to sunsetting. The skill sets and expertise required for different stages often vary, requiring that collaborations put in place teams that are qualified for the work at hand.
Strategic business models must take into consideration the full costs of operations, especially when developing and testing new services. Executive director and project staff should maintain a strict focus on project requirements and institutional needs to avoid scope creep. Balancing the project management triangle (scope, cost, and time) determines the quality and success of the project.
Member institutions within their organization understand the importance of the initiative, the nature of their commitment, and the resources/authority required to secure resources during implementation.
Collaboration leaders develop communication strategies that take into consideration the information needs of different stakeholders to inform and engage them.
When considering or designing a new collection collaboration, the partners consider the entire lifecycle to understand the implications and requirements necessary to support the discovery, access, and preservation of content overtime.

Appendix A: Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the CCLP co-PIs who have guided our research in support of the project and provided valuable feedback to the final report:

Todd Carpenter, Executive Director, National Information Standards Organization (NISO)
Jill Morris, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium (PALCI)
Boaz Nadav Manes, University Librarian, Lehigh University Libraries

We appreciated the following NISO staff’s assistance during the project workshops:

Keondra Bailey, Assistant Standards Program Manager
Nettie Lagace, Associate Executive Director

We are grateful to the following colleagues for participating in the study and sharing their candid insights about the state of collection development collaborations:^{^[27]}

Mohammad AlHamad, Director of Resource Management & Discovery, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
Sara Amato, Program Manager, Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust (EAST)
Alison Armstrong, Collections Management Librarian, Radford University Library
Kate Davis, Director, Scholars Portal, University of Toronto Libraries
Mandy Deans Kassies, Collections Librarian, Brock University Library
Galadriel Chilton, Director of Collections Initiatives, IPLC
Lisa Croucher, Executive Director, TRLN
Catherine Davidson, University Librarian, Ontario Tech University Library
Kelly Farrell, TRLN Program Officer
Elena Feinstein, Head of Collection Strategy & Development, Duke University Libraries
Christa Foley, Assistant Director, Information Resources and Collections, Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL)
Mike Furlough, Executive Director, HathiTrust
Patricia Gaspari-Bridges, Assistant University Librarian for Collection Development, Princeton University Library
Paul Glassman, Director of Scholarly and Cultural Resources, Yeshiva University Library
Gregory Green, Curator of the Echols Collection on Southeast Asia, Cornell University Library
Amy Greenberg, Executive Director, OCUL
Laure Haak, Founding Director, ORCID
Stephanie Harley, Director of Staff and Board Engagement, ORCID
Sara Harrington, Associate University Librarian for Academic Engagement, UConn Library
Emma Heet, Associate Dean for Collection Services, Loyola University Chicago Libraries
Judith Henchy, Southeast Asian Studies Librarian, University of Washington Libraries
Tammy Hines, Head of Collections and Information Services, Longwood University Greenwood Library
Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, Coordinator for Research and Teaching Professional Development in the University Library and Affiliate Professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Jason Kovari, Cornell, Acting Associate University Librarian for Technical Services, Cornell University Library
Nerea Llamas, Department Head, Collections and Research Strategy, North Carolina State University
David Magier, Associate University Librarian for Collections and Access Services, Princeton University Library
Kim Maxwell, Head of Technical Services, MIT Libraries
Lorrie McAllister, Associate University Librarian for Collection Services and Analysis, Arizona State University Library
Alice Meadows, Co-Founder, MoreBrains Cooperative
Laura Morales, Associate Dean for Collections and Content Services, William and Mary Libraries
Crystal Newell, Director of Library Services, Piedmont Virginia Community College Library
Ana Noriega, Assistant Director for Collections Management, Colby College Libraries
Genya O’Gara, Director of VIVA
Andrew Pace, Executive Director, Association of Research Libraries
Hao Phan, Southeast Asia Curator, Northern Illinois University
Tamara Remhof, Associate Director of Library Services, Germanna Community College Library
Matthew Revitt, Shared Print Consultant, EAST
Rose Reynolds, Head of Collection Development and Analysis, Dartmouth Libraries
Karen Rupp Serrano, Associate Dean for Scholarly Communication and Collection Management, University of Oklahoma
Abby Scheel, Head, Arts & Humanities Division, University of California, Berkeley
Virginia Shih, Curator for Southeast Asia and Buddhist Studies, University of California, Berkeley Library
Chris Shillum, Executive Director, ORCID
Sócrates Silva, Latin American & Iberian Studies Librarian, Columbia University Libraries
Susan Stearns, Project Director Emerita, EAST
Kornelia Tancheva, Hillman University Librarian and Director of the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh
Kizer Walker, Director of Collections, Cornell University Library
Marie Waltz, Head of Access Initiatives & Collections Care, Center for Research Libraries
Simeon Warner, AUL for Information Technology and Open Scholarship, Cornell University Library
Heather Weltin, Content and Data Management Lead and Program Officer for Shared Print, HathiTrust
Ryan Wolfson-Ford, Southeast Asia Reference Librarian, Library of Congress
Alexander Wright, Collection Services Librarian, Howard University Libraries

Appendix B: Research Methodology

In 2023, Ithaka S+R participated in a multi-institutional partnership to facilitate the cross-industry development of collaborative library collections, funded through the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in a grant 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 Collaborative Collections Lifecycle Project (CCLP) aims to engage the community to deploy recommended practices, tools, and other resources to enable the responsible stewardship and use of library collections at scale.^{^[28]} It seeks to overcome barriers to wider implementations in libraries and archives, including the lack of available vendor-neutral interoperable systems, data exchange standards, adequate governance and decision-making frameworks, and assessment tools. Ithaka S+R has contributed to the project by exploring the collective collection development practices of eight distinct collaborations to understand how different governance and business models can support successful planning, decision making, implementation, and sustainability. Ithaka S+R also advises the CCLP Steering Committee and conducts research on CCD practices to contribute to the initiative’s goals.

This report is supported by the findings of desk research and interviews with key participants on best practices, pitfalls, risk factors, principles for sustained stakeholder engagement, and strategies for creating a forward-looking governance structure. Ithaka S+R created a profile of each initiative individually and shared them on a confidential basis with the members of the CCLP Research Lead Team (RLT), which is composed of the project PIs, Steering Committee Liaison, and the CCLP Working Group liaisons. Given the confidential nature of the interviews, and the full profiles that relied on such in-depth information, this report is based on an aggregate analysis without specific references to any of the collaborations explored. It aims to further increase our understanding of the governance and business characteristics of the CCD initiatives and contribute to development of actionable recommendations by the CCLP team to help the sector implement research findings.

We conducted interviews with 50 individuals representing the collection collaborations examined and their members to gather information about the following issues:

Collaboration models, resources and governance models for decision-making, implementation, innovation, and sustainability;
Successes, challenges, opportunities, roadblocks, gaps, lessons learned, future plans;
Stakeholders (academic, commercial, community-based, etc.) involved in the initiative and level of participation, influence and power, engagement strategies.

The CCLP Steering Committee selected which collaborations to profile, with a goal to uncover their successes, challenges, and future plans, and to highlight different models of collection development. Their selection process was based on a set of criteria, including the member institution/library type, collaboration purpose, collection development lifecycle, and governance model.

The purpose of the interviews was to explore how the governance models of these collaborative initiatives supported decision making, implementation, and sustainability to inform the CCLP. Rather than focusing on enabling technologies, we consider how collaborations start, evolve, function, engage members, and are sustained and evolve over time.

The sample interview questions for the library collaboration leads included:

Would you tell us about your initiatives that support the selection and acquisition of library materials? How does it address other lifecycle processes such as discovery, access, and preservation?
Do you have a collection development policy (conspectus) that guides the initiative?
- How was it developed?
- How does the selection process work? For instance, are most selection processes automated based on criteria? How do approval plans, demand driven acquisition methods, publishers’ catalogs, and union catalogs contribute to the selection process? How do you determine the number of print copies total that should be held among collaborators?
- What tools do managers and selectors use to identify new content and determine if the content is appropriate for the collection?
How do you balance the need for a comprehensive, long-term, research collection with near-term access needs?
How do you keep track of the project expenses and revenues in the program area? Is the initiative’s budget supported by member dues or is there additional support?
How does formal governance work and has it evolved overtime? Is there a separate governing group that provides guidance for your collection building initiatives? Do you make your governance document available on your website? [ask only if we cannot find them]
What can you tell us about the demand for the collaboration and how it is evolving? How many institutions are participating in the initiative? What are their characteristics (type, size, location, etc.)?
What have been your initiatives’ main successes over the years?
How do you assess and incorporate needs and requirements of a variety of cultural heritage institutions? For instance, do you support user-driven or evidence-based selection models?
What are your key challenges in supporting collaborative selection and acquisition from different perspectives (technical, community engagement, governance, etc.)?
What are your top priorities for the next 2-4 years?
Do you have any other observations or advice based on your experience?

The sample interview questions for the member library representatives included:

How does your institution participate in the CCD initiative’s programs that support selection and acquisition of library materials (collection building)?
How does your institution benefit from your participation in various initiatives? Can you provide a couple of examples to illustrate?
Are there any challenges in participation? If so, can you provide a couple of examples? Probes:
- Technical infrastructure (vendor-neutral interoperable systems, interoperable systems, standards, assessment tools)
- Financial/business infrastructure (library resources, innovation in marketplace)
- Social infrastructure (governance and decision-making frameworks, trust, complexity of initiatives, competition, staff resistance)
Are there any other CCD initiatives that your organization is involved in? If so, how do the multiple CCD initiatives complement each other?
How does your institution decide which initiatives to support? What is the decision-making process? Who are the decision makers? How do you assess value and make renewal decisions?
What are your thoughts on the current state and future of this specific initiative? What are the areas for improvement and advancement?

Appendix C: Organizational Profiles

These profiles are based on information gathered in April-November 2023 through desk research, covering various online resources including the initiative website and related presentations and reports. They focus on governance and business model information.

Center for Research Libraries Global Collections, Southeast Asia Materials Project (SEAM)

Reviewed by Marie Waltz, Head of Access Initiatives, Center for Research Libraries, January 8, 2024.

Mission Established in 1970	SEAM (https://www.crl.edu/programs/seam) aims to preserve and provide access to rare or unique resources from Southeast Asia by microfilming or acquiring films of topical materials and making them readily available. It was developed because the unstable political climates, inflation, and conflict in the region made identifying and preserving historical materials and records difficult. SEAM materials can be searched in the Center for Research Libraries’ (CRL) online catalog or in WorldCat. SEAM is the smallest group of CRL’s Global Collections Program in terms of participants. The CRL community is in the process of evaluating the Center’s global collections activities within the context of building a holistic strategy that leverages CRL’s unique infrastructure.
Related Programs and Initiatives	The Global Collections Program at CRL is composed of several programs, activities, and collections that have evolved organically over decades. In 2023, CRL initiated a strategic planning process to “leverage…CRL’s unique community, scale, and infrastructure to build community-stewarded global collections in service of research, scholarship, and fostering a postcolonial knowledge commons” (https://www.crl.edu/strengthening-crl-global-collections).
Membership	Membership is open to any institution or nonprofit organization maintaining a library. There are two classes of membership: voting members (institutions located in continental North America) and global affiliates. Libraries support CRL activities and services by paying an annual cost share rather than a membership fee (the annual amount is subject to change). SEAM has 27 national and international institutional members.
Governance	SEAM was established through the collaboration of the Committee on Research Materials on Southeast Asia (CORMOSEA), a component committee of the Southeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies and the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), and is administered by CRL. The SEAM Executive Committee (https://www.crl.edu/area-studies/seam/membership-information/executive-committee) consists of both elected and ex-officio members. A CRL representative serves as a non-voting, ex-officio member.
Business Model	Member institutions fund SEAM projects and acquisitions through an annual membership fee. Representatives of member institutions meet annually to discuss project proposals, and projects and purchases are approved by the membership. Financial statements are not publicly available (budgets are a planning tool, they do not track expenses), but submitted projects are visible via CRL’s eDesiderata database (https://edesiderata.crl.edu/).
Staffing	SEAM has no full-time staff. CRL team members manage its administration (finances, meetings, governance, etc.) Projects are led by individuals or groups of SEAM members. The CRL team works with SEAM project leads to process materials for access (microfilming, metadata creation, vendor negotiation, etc.).

Committee on Research Materials on Southeast Asia (CORMOSEA)

Reviewed by Gregory Green, Curator of the Echols Collection on Southeast Asia, Cornell University, January 8, 2024, and Ryan Wolfson-Ford, Library of Congress, Asian Division, Southeast Asian Reference Librarian, January 18, 2024.

Mission Established in 1969	The Committee on Research Materials on Southeast Asia (CORMOSEA) aims to enhance and coordinate national efforts to collect and disseminate research materials on Southeast Asia. A history of the organization and its aims is available for download through: https://cormosea.wordpress.com/about-cormosea/.
Related Programs and Initiatives	Many CORMOSEA members rely on the Cooperative Acquisitions Program for Southeast Asia (CAP-SEA) to supply the majority of their acquisitions but also look to additional independent vendors to fill in gaps. On-site acquisition trips have always and continue to play a critical role in acquiring collections too. While member institutions continue to collect print materials, there is also increasing attention on digital resources including census data, government reports, etc. However, there are limited digital resources beyond English language texts that serve lower-level undergraduate teaching. Research in this subject domain therefore continues to require access to library resources that are currently only available in print or analog formats. With funding from the United States Department of Education’s Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access (TICFIA) program, the Southeast Asia Digital Library (https://sea.lib.niu.edu/) was established at Northern Illinois University in 2005.
Members	CORMOSEA is composed of 17 research libraries/institutions with strong Southeast Asia collections, including CRL and the Library of Congress. Membership is open to research institutions with significant holdings of materials relating to Southeast Asia or an emerging interest in Southeast Asian librarianship.
Governance	There are three subcommittees: Collection Development, Technical Processes, and Digital Initiatives. CORMOSEA officers are elected from amongst the member institutions. See CORMOSEA Bylaws for more: https://cormosea.wordpress.com/bylaws/.
Business Model	CORMOSEA initiatives rely entirely on volunteer labor, with no standing budget. In 2019, CORMOSEA was awarded a $1.2 million USD grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to spur infrastructure development and capacity building for the Southeast Asia Digital Library (SEADL). CRL SEAM and CORMOSEA have a collaboration to digitize or microfilm materials. There are about 20 partners, each granting $800 USD/year to conduct one to two small projects every year. The materials are either digitally available or can be lent physically.
Staffing	The collaboration is based on the volunteer participation of staff from member libraries with no obligation (other than attending the annual meetings if possible). The only dedicated staff is the SEADL Project Manager, who was hired recently based on funding from the Luce Foundation to establish a new business model that is not fully reliant on grants and one-off projects.

Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust (EAST)

Reviewed by Susan Stearns, Program Director, Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust (EAST), January 9, 2024.

Mission Formed in 2015	EAST’s mission is to secure the print scholarly record in support of teaching, learning, and research. Their goal is to maximize retention commitments and facilitate access. See information on purpose and history (https://eastlibraries.org/about-us/purpose-history/) and 2022-2025 strategic directions (https://eastlibraries.org/about-us/2022-strategic-directions/).
Programs and Initiatives	Retention Commitments (https://eastlibraries.org/retention-access/retention-commitments/): EAST currently retains approximately eight million monographs (distinct OCLC numbers), representing over 11 million holdings, and approximately 18,000 serials and journal titles, representing over 37,000 holdings. Retentions are disclosed in the members’ catalogs as well as in OCLC WorldCat and, for serials and journals within the PAPR database, maintained by the Center for Research Libraries. Access and Resource Sharing (https://eastlibraries.org/retention-access/access/): The EAST-retained titles are held as a light archive within their local circulating collections. The EAST Major Operating Policies call for member libraries to use their own institutional policies to fulfill requests from other EAST libraries for retained titles.^{^[29]} Registration of Retention Commitments in OCLC (https://eastlibraries.org/retention-access/oclc-registration/): EAST retention partners agree to register their retention commitments with OCLC’s Shared Print Registration Service, which is available to all full cataloging subscribers. Libraries may choose to register the commitments themselves, or have EAST work as an agent to register commitments on their behalf. Funded by an IMLS grant, EAST is collaborating with the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium to identify ways to enhance the diversity of institutional participants and collections in their respective shared print programs.^{^[30]} Read more about EAST’s strategic directions for 2022-2025: https://eastlibraries.org/about-us/2022-strategic-directions/.
Membership	EAST currently has over 150 members in two categories: 1) Individual Retention Partners and Consortia Retention Partners contribute financial support to EAST, participate in collection analysis work, and commit to retain agreed upon titles in their local collections and make these titles available to other EAST members through the EAST Lending Network. 2) Individual Supporting Partners and Consortia Supporting Partners contribute financial support to EAST but do not participate in collection analysis work or make retention commitments. They participate in the EAST Lending Network. See information on membership: https://eastlibraries.org/about-us/members/.
Governance	Primary governance is provided by the Board of Directors (https://eastlibraries.org/about-us/governance/). As of June 1, 2023, EAST has transitioned from its previous fiscal sponsorship relationship with the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) to independent legal status as a 501(c)(3).^{^[31]} This change is intended to increase the organization’s flexibility to dedicate resources to its strategic areas of focus, secure EAST’s organizational sustainability by considering different funding sources, and broaden its membership beyond the geographic scope of BLC. This transition also allows BLC to refocus on core strategic priorities outlined in its new strategic action plan. To support EAST’s work, the executive committee has appointed a number of working groups (https://eastlibraries.org/about-us/governance/) to oversee the initial collection analysis, retention modeling, and validation work as well as more recent work on facilitating inter-library loan across the membership and registration of EAST commitments in national databases, such as the Print Archive Preservation Registry and the OCLC WorldCat database. The EAST operations committee (https://eastlibraries.org/about-us/governance/operations-committee/) is an appointed body—with representation from both Retention Partner institutions as well as across the diversity of the EAST membership—responsible for development, implementation, and operationalization of policies and procedures. See EAST’s general governance policies for more: https://eastlibraries.org/wp-content/uploads/General-Governance-Policies.pdf.
Business Model	No public budget is available.
Staffing	Three staff (totaling 1.25 FTE) (As of the writing of this report, the program director has announced retirement and a search is underway for a successor.) See more information on the project team: https://eastlibraries.org/about-us/staffing-east-project/.

HathiTrust

Reviewed by Jennifer Vinopal, Associate Director; Heather Weltin, Content and Data Management Lead and Shared Print Program Officer, January 8, 2024, and Michael Furlough, Executive Director, on January 15, 2024.

Mission Launched in 2008	The mission of HathiTrust (https://www.hathitrust.org/) is to contribute to research, scholarship, and the common good by collaboratively collecting, organizing, preserving, communicating, and sharing the record of human knowledge. HathiTrust offers reading access to the fullest extent allowable by US copyright law, computational access to the entire corpus for scholarly research, and other emerging services based on the combined collection. The founding assumptions of HathiTrust have not changed significantly since it was established in 2008 to address the long-term access and preservation of materials digitized through the Google Digitization Project. However, the supporting membership has grown substantially and the environment in which it operates has changed significantly. HathiTrust is expected to release an updated strategic vision in early 2024. See more on “Strategic Visioning: Hathitrust in the Future” (https://www.hathitrust.org/about/mission-history/strategic-visioning/), and Hathitrust’s mission and goals (https://www.hathitrust.org/about/mission-history/).
Core Programs and Initiatives	The HathiTrust Digital Library preserves and provides access to digitized books and journals of member institutions (predominantly digitized through Google and Microsoft), including 17 million volumes. The HathiTrust Research Center (https://www.hathitrust.org/about/research-center/) offers services to support use of the HathiTrust corpus as a dataset for analysis for text and data mining. The Shared Print Program (https://www.hathitrust.org/member-libraries/services-programs/shared-print-program/) coordinates a network of print collections with collective print retention for 18.4 million monographs (5.6 million titles). The Accessible Text Request Service (https://www.hathitrust.org/member-libraries/services-programs/atrs/) supports providing print resources (including copyrighted ones) to users who are disabled in an accessible format, useable with adaptive technologies. The Copyright Review Program (https://www.hathitrust.org/member-libraries/services-programs/copyright-review/) enables reviewing, identifying, and opening public domain materials in the US and around the world. The Emergency Temporary Access Service (https://www.hathitrust.org/member-libraries/services-programs/etas/) permits temporary, emergency access to the collection for member libraries during service disruptions caused by the global pandemic.
Membership	Number of campuses served: 302 Number of members: 213 supporting members (some system members, like the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the University of California, the University of Texas, and the University of Florida include multiple campuses)
Governance	The University of Michigan is the current administrative and legal host of HathiTrust and all employees of HathiTrust are employees of the University of Michigan. HathiTrust has an extensive governance structure including a board of governors, program steering committee, and various working groups that are formed to focus on specific programs or issues. See more about the governance structure: https://www.hathitrust.org/about/governance/.
Business Model and Governance	HathiTrust is funded through membership fees from libraries. Average annual fees range from $6,500 to $44,500 USD, depending on library budget size. The projected 2023 income from members is $4.2 million USD, and expenses are $4.3 million USD (The difference will be covered through planned spending from reserves and grants). The annual budget includes expense elements to fund preservation and access services, administration, and infrastructure investments. HathiTrust’s cost allocation model is designed to equitably share costs across the membership, while also accounting for the variable benefit that individual libraries receive (This benefit depends on the number of copyrighted items held by the library that are also in HathiTrust). HathiTrust Research Center leverages the data storage and computational infrastructure at Indiana University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The University of Michigan provides overhead (HR, finance, space, etc.). See the 2023 Budget (https://drive.google.com/file/d/110xFuKkN623kbwkwB9OLdCL1mikq8C7s/view?usp=sharing) and an overview of the cost model and annual fees (https://www.hathitrust.org/join/cost-fees/).
Staffing	Nineteen staff members plus several working groups that provide in-kind contributions from member organizations. In 2023, HathiTrust received a five-year, $1 million USD grant from the Mellon Foundation to fund three new positions to develop an integrated program of assessment, analytics, and portfolio management. See more on the HathiTrust team: https://www.hathitrust.org/about/our-team/.

Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation Profile for Selection and Acquisition Programs

Reviewed by Galadriel Chilton, Director of Collections Initiatives, IPLC, January 9, 2024.

Mission Founded in 2014	The Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation (IPLC) is a voluntary union of 13 academic libraries: Brown University, the University of Chicago, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Stanford University, and Yale University. BorrowDirect began with Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University in 1999. The first use of “Ivy Plus Libraries” was in 2014. The current membership—with all 13 libraries—was established in 2016.
Related Programs and Initiatives	Strategic priorities include: collaborative resource sharing, collaborative collection development and management, and leadership and advocacy in the scholarly information ecosystem.^{^[32]} IPLC defines a “program” as an initiative that has dedicated staffing: Established in 1999, IPLC facilitates the discovery and circulation of physical materials from member libraries through its flagship resource-sharing program BorrowDirect (https://ivpluslibraries.org/programs/borrowdirect-resource-sharing-service/). In 2022, IPLC launched “Returnables,” developed by the community-based Project ReShare (https://projectreshare.org/) to enhance BorrowDirect’s user interface and make it easier for users to discover, request, and receive physical library materials. The Web Resources Collection Program (https://ivpluslibraries.org/programs/ivy-plus-libraries-confederation-web-collecting-program/) is a collaborative collection development effort to build curated, thematic collections of freely available, but at-risk, web content in order to support research at participating libraries and beyond (established in 2017). Note: All IPLC libraries are members of consortia that license e-resources and thus IPLC does not collaborate on subscriptions and licensing. In addition to the programs described above, the Confederation engages in initiatives and pilot projects to inform and assess viability of potential programs in fulfillment of IPLC’s mission. Examples include: Six IPLC libraries participated in a pilot program in 2017 to share scans of special collections materials at no cost to BorrowDirect Libraries.^{^[33]} The initial pilot ended, but the concept is being revisited. A collaborative book collection program pilot to test models for coordinated acquisitions of print monographs by defining and implementing a coordinated GOBI acquisitions plan for Brill English language books. Definitions and concepts for diversity, equity, and inclusion for collaborative collection development and management. Cooperative collection development initiatives for a subset of members including: Contemporary Composers, an initiative that collects about 2,000 globally based contemporary composers, more recently adding younger emerging composers and increasing the percentage of women and composers of diverse backgrounds. Brazilian Monographs Collaboration in which the participating libraries agree to maintain research-level collections in one or more state regions. Contemporary Latin American Artist Monographs in which the participating libraries agree to maintain research-level collections in one or more state regions.
Membership	Since its founding in 1999, IPLC’s membership has grown in alignment with the Ivy Plus Provosts membership, reaching its current membership of 13 institutions in 2016.
Governance	The group is considered a confederation to indicate that each member governs itself but agrees to work together for common causes. The key governance groups include the library directors Group and program steering group. Six key groups—on resource sharing and strategy, collection development, scholarly communication, technical services, assessment, and IT—work on strategic priorities. There are 27 affinity groups (https://ivpluslibraries.org/affinity-groups/) by discipline, area of focus, or expertise, to discuss best practices and share information.
Staffing	In addition to significant contributions by staff in member libraries, there are four full time IPLC staff (director of collections initiatives, director of discovery and resource sharing initiatives, BorrowDirect program manager, and web collection librarian) as well as a half-time position (bibliographic assistant for the web collecting program). Each staff member is employed by one of the member institutions that serves as the administrative home for staff, but their salary and related program expenses are shared equally by the partnership. See more on staff: https://ivpluslibraries.org/about/staff/.
Business Model	The program expenses are covered by the member libraries as annual membership fees.

Library of Congress Cooperative Acquisitions Program for Southeast Asia (CAPSEA)

Reviewed by Laila Mulgaokar, Field Director for Southeast Asia, Library of Congress, February 21, 2024.

Mission Established in 1963	The Library of Congress (LOC) office in Jakarta serves as a regional center for the acquisition, cataloging, and reformatting of materials from 11 countries in Southeast Asia: Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste, and Vietnam. It has sub offices with local staff in American Embassies in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Rangoon (Yangon). These regional offices acquire, catalog, and preserve publications for the Library of Congress and the Cooperative Acquisitions Program for Southeast Asia from regions around the world where conventional acquisition methods are inadequate.
Related Programs and Initiatives	Acquisitions librarians at the Library of Congress acquire a wide range of recently published materials in various formats across all subjects, with the exception of technical agriculture and clinical medicine, and there is a growing emphasis on e-resources. Librarians acquire commercial and non-commercial research-quality publications from a variety of sources by managing an extensive network of vendors, optimizing local and outstation contacts, and through travel for the collections of the Library of Congress and for the Cooperative Acquisitions Program. Catalogers provide online bibliographic access at various levels of cataloging. Publications cataloged in 2023 were in 65 languages, including Burmese, Chinese, English, Indonesian, Javanese, Lao, Malay, Tagalog, Tetum, Thai, and Vietnamese.
Membership	LOC-Jakarta and its sub offices currently serve 44 American, Canadian, and European academic and research institutions through the Cooperative Acquisitions Program for Southeast Asia.
Governance	The Library of Congress operates six overseas field offices, in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), Egypt (Cairo), India (New Delhi), Indonesia (Jakarta), Kenya (Nairobi), and Pakistan (Islamabad). The library has maintained its offices since 1962; they cover more than 75 African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and South American countries. Field directors for the overseas offices report to the Director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access (ABA). The ABA Directorate, which manages the overseas offices, is administratively located in Discovery and Preservation Services at the Library of Congress.
Business Model	These regional offices acquire, catalog, and preserve publications from regions around the world for the Library of Congress on a full cost-recovery basis and for research and academic libraries in the United States and other countries through the library’s Cooperative Acquisitions Program. Participants establish monographic profiles based on country of publication, language, geographic area of context, subject, and degree of selectivity. Orders are placed by Library of Congress offices for titles that fit the participant’s profile. Serials and newspapers are not profiled. A list of current subscriptions is available. Certain categories of publications are offered on circulars which participants select by title. These include: new serial titles, non-print, sound recordings, moving image, maps, reprints, and titles which cost more than $75 USD.
Staffing	LOC-Jakarta (with 40 local staff and one American director) is based in the American Embassy in Jakarta and has six sections: Acquisitions, Cataloging, Preservation (Microfilming and Binding), Budget and Finance, Administration (Receiving, Packing and Shipping) and IT. Sub offices in Bangkok (eight staff members), Kuala Lumpur (three staff members), Manila (two staff members), and Rangoon (one staff member) are staffed by acquisitions and serials librarians, catalogers, and library technicians.

Ontario Council of University Library (OCUL)

Reviewed by Amy Greenberg, Executive Director, Ontario Council of University and Kate Davis, Director, Scholars Portal (University of Toronto), January 9, 2024.

Mission Established in 1967	OCUL is Ontario’s academic library consortium, composed of 21 libraries with a mission to collaborate to enhance research support and create rich learning environments for Ontario’s diverse and growing university population. The consortium aims to enhance information services in Ontario and beyond through collective purchasing and shared digital information infrastructure, collaborative planning, advocacy, assessment, research, partnerships, communications, and professional development.
Related Programs and Initiatives	Scholars Portal (https://scholarsportal.info/) provides shared technology and collections: The Trusted Digital Repository preserves and provides access to licensed e-journals on behalf of members. The Scholars Portal e-book platform provides a single interface for accessing digital texts from publishers and digitized public domain books. Scholars Portal Journals is a repository of over 65 million journal articles, mostly subscription-based and available only to Ontario universities who have negotiated access for them (a small number of journals are open access and available to anyone). Ontario Library Research Cloud (OLRC) aims to build a high-capacity, geographically distributed network using open-source cloud technologies. Permafrost is a hosted digital preservation service with a suite of tools, trainings, and resources to support members’ preservation programs. Scholars Portal hosts Open Journal Systems and Open Monograph Press. RACER supports an interlibrary loan service to allow users to search numerous libraries’ catalogs simultaneously to find and request materials (transitioning to another ILL system). The Accessible Content ePortal is a repository of accessible format texts available to users with print disabilities at participating institutions. The Collaborative Futures initiative (https://www.ocul.on.ca/projects/collaborative-futures) aims to implement a shared next-generation library services platform to collectively manage and preserve electronic and print resources: Implementing Ex Libris Alma and Primo is a key component of OCUL’s Collaborative Futures strategy to facilitate discovery of library resources, streamline staff workflows, and collaboratively manage e-resources and physical collections.^{^[34]} OCUL manages over 180 licenses for electronic resources on behalf of its member libraries. See the full list: https://www.ocul.on.ca/consortial-products. Omni (https://ocul.on.ca/omni/) is an academic search tool that connects 14 university libraries in Ontario. OCUL coordinates a variety of professional development activities (https://www.ocul.on.ca/professional-development) on behalf of its membership. Learn more in the 2021-2022 OCUL Collaborative Futures Impact Report (https://ocul.on.ca/sites/default/files/Collaborative_Futures_Impact_Report_2021-22.pdf)
Priorities	OCUL’s current three-year strategic plan (https://www.ocul.on.ca/strategic-plan ) focuses on three strategic priorities: supporting Indigenous reconciliation (https://ocul.on.ca/ocul-tr); expanding shared resources and infrastructure; and supporting hybrid and flexible learning.
Membership	OCUL’s membership consists of a provincial consortium of 21 publicly-funded universities in Ontario, Canada, ranging from research universities to small undergraduate universities. OCUL’s structure is codified by a constitution: (https://www.ocul.on.ca/constitution).
Governance	Reporting to the chair of the OCUL executive committee, the executive director oversees the organization’s staff, planning, administration, and operations budget. The library directors at Ontario’s 21 university libraries are responsible for governing OCUL’s work and are known as the OCUL directors. Together, they form its council (https://ocul.on.ca/the-council). An executive committee comprising five officer roles, plus the OCUL executive director in an ex-officio capacity, supports the council in fulfilling its purpose. OCUL has five standing committees (https://www.ocul.on.ca/committees)—the financial management advisory committee, the Scholars Portal operations and development committee, the information resources committee, the collaborative futures steering committee, and the truth and reconciliation committee—plus ad hoc groups and communities as needed to oversee different initiatives.
Staffing	The OCUL office includes 11 staff members. The Scholars Portal team involves about 31 staff members. See more on the OCUL team: https://ocul.on.ca/contact.
Business Model	The 2022 annual budget is composed of several components. OCUL operational budget of over $1 million CAD Content licensing budget of over $21 million CAD Scholars Portal budget of about $4 million CAD Scholars Portal was developed with funding from the Ontario Innovation Trust in 2001-02. Since 2006, OCUL members have assumed full responsibility for the sustainability of Scholars Portal, which is hosted by the University of Toronto Library. The OCUL New Initiatives Fund (https://ocul.on.ca/sites/default/files/OCUL_NIF_TOR_Approved_04-28-2023.pdf) was established in 2012 to support major strategic initiatives and essential priorities that align with OCUL’s strategic plan, vision, and mission, and that will have impact for all OCUL member libraries in support of their teaching, learning, and research priorities. The fund has a minimum annual balance of $100,000 CAD. OCUL is fully supported by annual membership fees, depending on library attributes, ranging from $67,000 to $900,000 CAD (not including the shared Library Services Platform subscription and staffing costs).

Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID)

Reviewed by Chris Shillum, Executive Director, ORCID, February 28, 2024.

Mission Launched in 2012	ORCID’s vision is a world where all who participate in research, scholarship, and innovation are uniquely identified and connected to their contributions across disciplines, borders, and time. In order to realize the vision, ORCID strives to enable transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their contributions, and their affiliations by providing a unique, persistent identifier for individuals to use as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities.
Related Programs and Initiatives	ORCID provides three core services: ORCID iD: a unique, persistent identifier, available free of charge to researchers An ORCID record connected to the ORCID iD A set of application programming interfaces, as well as the services and support of communities of practice that enable interoperability between an ORCID record and member organizations; researchers can choose to allow connection of their iD with their affiliations and contributions. In 2022, ORCID launched the Global Participation Program (https://info.orcid.org/global-participation-program/), which includes a fund to provide grants to improve understanding and encourage uptake of ORCID in underrepresented countries in the Global South ($5,000–$20,000 USD, with a duration of 12 months) as well as a membership fee discount program for member organizations from countries with lower-income economies. The program was enabled by 10 of the original lenders by forgiving all or part of their original start-up loans to ORCID (totaling about $1 million USD).^{^[35]} Learn more in ORCID’s 2022–2025 strategic plan: https://info.orcid.org/2020-2025-strategic-plans/.
Membership	ORCID has over 1,300 member organizations—both direct and through consortia—including universities and research institutions, publishers and professional associations, funders, facilities, government agencies, vendors and service providers, and other stakeholders in the research ecosystem. ORCID membership is open to any organization interested in supporting the organization, integrating ORCID metadata into their systems, adding trusted metadata to their researchers’ or users’ ORCID records, or participating in governance. In 2021, ORCID conducted a member and user value research project to gather feedback and ensure that the organizational strategy was aligned with the community needs.^{^[36]}
Staffing	About 40 staff members across 13 countries, all working fully remote. View the full ORCID team: https://info.orcid.org/orcid-team/.
Business Model	ORCID is a not-for-profit organization now fully sustained by fees from member organizations. Annual fees range from $1,090 to $28,140 USD depending on organizational and membership (basic or premium) type.^{^[37]} ORCID was first launched in 2009 as a collaborative effort by publishers of scholarly research, incorporated in 2010, and relaunched in 2012 with the financial support of startup loans from the publishing community and grants and sponsorships from several organizations. As of the end of 2023, there are 26 national ORCID consortia spread across six continents. In 2018, US library consortia got together to form a single ORCID consortium for all US universities, with LYRASIS as the administrative home. The Membership Equity Program offers discounted membership fees for lower income and lower-middle income economies. 2022 Revenue: $5.26 million USD; Expenses: $4.45 million USD; Surplus: $860,000 USD. See the 2022 Annual Report (https://info.orcid.org/annual-reports/) for additional financial information.
Governance	ORCID is a community-built and community-managed organization, governed by a board of directors elected by the member organizations with representatives from a broad cross-section of stakeholders, the majority of whom are not-for-profit. The ORCID researcher advisory council was also launched in 2022 to engage researchers and included members from 12 different countries from regions throughout the world. ORCID has an international team that collaborates broadly and the values and principles (https://info.orcid.org/what-is-orcid/#founding-principles) guide the organization and provide a framework for decisions made by the board.

Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN) Profile for Selection and Acquisition Programs

Reviewed by Lisa Croucher, Executive Director, Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN), January 22, 2024.

Mission	The Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN) is a collaborative organization of Duke University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the purpose of which is to marshal the financial, human, and information resources of their research libraries through cooperative efforts in order to create a rich and unparalleled knowledge environment that furthers the universities’ teaching, research, learning, and service missions. Founded in the 1930s, TRLN is the oldest academic library consortium in the United States. The member libraries’ collections include over 20 million volumes.
Core Programs	TRLN’s 2021-2023 Program Plan highlights activities within collaborative collection building to “develop a robust, complementary, and accessible collection that takes advantage of members’ geographic proximity, serves diverse user communities, and highlights members’ unique strengths.”^{^[38]} Several standing working groups (https://trln.org/activities/working-groups/) support these activities, including a resource sharing working group, a shared discovery services working group, and a collections interest group. In addition, TRLN currently has active working groups to address the areas of circulation policy, electronic resources management, and reshare implementation. Other interest groups (https://trln.org/activities/interest-groups/) on select topics also meet as needed.
Membership	Duke University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill make up the membership of TRLN. TRLN maintains a robust calendar (https://trln.org/events/) of discussions and training opportunities for affiliates of its member institutions.
Governance	The governing board (https://trln.org/about/governance/governing-board/) holds the ultimate authority of TRLN, with responsibility for retaining qualified executive leadership for TRLN, establishing policy, approving operating budgets, overseeing assets, and setting strategic directions. Membership consists of the provosts of the member institutions, the university librarian from each member institution, and the TRLN executive director, ex officio. The executive committee (https://trln.org/about/governance/executive-committee/) engages in planning, conducts mid-year budget reviews, plans the annual meeting of the governing board, and makes decisions as necessary between meetings of the board. The membership of the executive committee consists of the four university librarians and the TRLN executive director, ex officio. Members of each institution are represented on TRLN’s advisory council (https://trln.org/about/governance/advisory-council/), which provides programmatic and strategic oversight of the consortium’s priorities and activities, advising the executive committee on strategic directions and financial decisions. An overview of TRLN governance is available here: https://trln.org/about/governance/.
Staffing	TRLN employs four full-time employees. More information on staff is available here: https://trln.org/about/staff/.
Business Model	TRLN is a non-profit organization incorporated in the state of North Carolina. Expenses are covered by member libraries.

Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA)

Reviewed by Genya O’Gara, Director, VIVA, February 1, 2024.

Mission Founded in 1994	The Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA) is the consortium of 71 academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia. The consortium focuses on cooperative purchasing; shared e-resources; resource sharing; shared print, open, and affordable course content initiatives; and community development.
Programs and Initiatives	VIVA public institutions have a shared collection (https://vivalib.org/va/collections/public-core) of 100,000+ e-journals, 180+ databases, 454,000 e-books, and 135,000+ streaming media. VIVA non-profit private institutions have a smaller core shared collection (https://vivalib.org/va/collections/private-core), supported by limited funds from the General Assembly that are matched by the participating institutions. All VIVA contracts include all public institutions, and non-profit private institutions may opt-in to those that are not purchased through the pooled funds program. VIVA provides centralized library services, including e-resource management (https://vivalib.org/va/e-resources), usage statistics, collection analysis, knowledge base support, and MARC record distribution for e-books and streaming media. VIVA expands the reach of its member institutions’ existing collections through multiple resource-sharing initiatives, including an interlibrary loan network, cooperative borrowing programs, and through participation in national shared print collection initiatives, such as EAST.^{^[39]} The Curriculum Driven Acquisitions (https://vivalib.org/va/open/bookstore-cda) program aims to reduce the cost of course materials for Virginia students by matching titles on bookstore lists to e-books available for purchase or already held in VIVA shared e-book collections. A number of VIVA programs and initiatives such as the small publisher approval plan (https://vivalib.org/va/collections/smallpub/approval) aim to assess and expand the diversity of the consortium’s shared collections. Value Metric is a collection assessment tool (https://vivalib.org/va/collections/analysis) to meet the current and evolving priorities of the consortium, including statewide relevance, support for VIVA’s values, curriculum alignment, cost effectiveness, user experience, product administration, and format specific criteria. VIVA’s model for publisher contracts (https://vivalib.org/va/collections/sustainable-journal) provides a starting point for negotiations with vendors to reflect VIVA’s consortial values and sustainability principles given the member library budgets. In 2021, VIVA’s open access task force (https://vivalib.org/va/collections/openaccess) developed “umbrella values” for the consortium to apply when considering statewide open access models and developing strategic directions for open access funding. VIVA has conducted several large-scale comprehensive print monographic collections analysis projects in support of its shared print efforts (https://vivalib.org/va/shared-print). VIVA works with EAST, Rosemont Shared Print, and also participates in Hyku for Consortia (consortial institutional repository, https://hykuforconsortia.palni.org/).
Membership	Membership consists of 71 academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia, including state-assisted colleges and universities, four-year comprehensive colleges and universities, community and two-year branch colleges, and independent private colleges and universities. See the full list of VIVA member libraries and FTE: https://vivalib.org/va/about/members-fte/.
Governance	Under the general direction of the VIVA steering committee, the VIVA director manages the services and is operationally responsible for planning, implementing, and evaluating VIVA’s overall program, projects, and activities. There are several committees and task forces (https://vivalib.org/va/about/committees) to support proposing new products and services, negotiating licenses and other contracts with vendors, performing cost-benefit analyses, and managing procurement of resources. The primary standing committees include those on collections, open and affordable course content, resource sharing, and outreach. The VIVA Collections Committee (https://vivalib.org/va/collections/committee) investigates products, recommends licensing or renewal, and maintains vendor contacts for VIVA electronic databases and journals. See more information on VIVA governance: https://vivalib.org/va/about/governance/.
Staffing	VIVA is a decentralized organization. The VIVA central office is located at George Mason University and the VIVA procurement office is located at James Madison University. It has nine staff members in the central office, and two staff members from JMU procurement who support VIVA’s work.
Business Model	VIVA is funded through support from the Virginia General Assembly, augmented by the local institutional library budgets. In addition, member institutions have supported the VIVA project in a variety of ways, including through the significant amounts of time donated by library staff members. Funding is allocated to VIVA by the General Assembly on a biennial basis. Total funding for the 2022-23 year is estimated to be approximately $20.7 million USD, of which $10.7 million (51.4 percent) is from the Commonwealth budget, an estimated $7.5 million (36 percent) will come from the public institutions and an estimated $2.6 million (12.5 percent) will come from the participating private, nonprofit members. 89 percent of the budget is allocated for electronic collections; and the remaining 11 percent for resource sharing and interlibrary loan, open and affordable course content program, and central administrative costs. See more information on VIVA funding here: https://vivalib.org/va/about/funding/.

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Endnotes

Lorcan Dempsey, “The Powers of Library Consortia: How Consortia Scale Capacity, Learning, Innovation and Influence,” 28 February 2018, https://www.lorcandempsey.net/the-powers-of-library-consortia-1-how-consortia-scale-capacity-learning-innovation-and-influence/. ↑
“Strategic Vision,” HathiTrust, updated May 2024, https://www.hathitrust.org/about/mission-history/strategic-visioning/. ↑
“SUNY Libraries Consortium (SLC), 2017-2022,” SUNY Libraries Consortium, https://sunyolis.libguides.com/slc. ↑
“EAST 2020 Program Assessment,” Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust, https://eastlibraries.org/member_resource/east-2020-program-assessment. ↑
“ORCID Board Elections,” ORCID, https://info.orcid.org/our-governance/board-elections/. ↑
“About ORCID: Our Founding Principles,” ORCID, https://info.orcid.org/what-is-orcid/. ↑
“Scholars Portal,” Ontario Council of University Libraries, https://ocul.on.ca/scholars-portal. ↑
Bernard F. Reilly, Jr. and Barbara DesRosiers, “Developing Print Repositories: Models for Shared Preservation and Access,” Center for Research Libraries, 2006, https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub117/part4/. ↑
“BLC and EAST Announce Successful Transition of EAST into Independent Organization,” Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust, https://eastlibraries.org/member_resource/blc-and-east-announce-successful-transition-of-east-into-independent-organization/. ↑
When each institution pays the same flat fee, this type of model may seem unfair, especially if smaller members are paying a larger share of their budgets for services that might not be relevant. ↑
“VIVA Funding,” VIVA, https://vivalib.org/va/about/funding. ↑
Heather Weltin, Alison Wohlers, and Amy Wood, “Shared Print Down the Rabbit Hole,” The Scholarly Kitchen, March 6, 2024, https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2024/03/06/guest-post-shared-print-down-the-rabbit-hole/; and Heather Weltin, Alison Wohlers, and Amy Wood, “Shared Print and Sustainability Through the Looking Glass,” The Scholarly Kitchen, March 7, 2024, https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2024/03/07/guest-post-shared-print-sustainability-through-the-looking-glass/. ↑
“ORCID’s First Decade: From Startup to Sustainability,” ORCID, https://info.orcid.org/orcid-first-decade-history/. ↑
“TRLN IDEA Funding,” Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN), https://trln.org/trln-idea-funding/. ↑
See the April 2023 issue of HathiTrust Newsletter for more information: https://www.hathitrust.org/newsletter-post/april-2023/. ↑
Borealis, the Canadian Dataverse Repository, is a bilingual and multidisciplinary research data repository, supported by academic libraries and research institutions across Canada. Borealis datasets are stored on Canadian servers at the University of Toronto Libraries with storage on the Ontario Library Research Cloud, a private, geographically-distributed cloud storage network built with partner universities. See: https://borealisdata.ca/. ↑
In the Educopia Institute’s Community Cultivation – A Field Guide, the term community is defined as an intentional collective of individuals who address common interests and goals and are committed to empowering its members to govern its operations and guide its development. Communities range from unfunded volunteer efforts to nonprofits with established revenue and service models. See: https://educopia.org/cultivation. ↑
“VIVA Value Metric Revision,” VIVA, https://vivalib.org/va/collections/vmtf. ↑
“VIVA Curriculum Driven Acquisitions (CDA) Program,” VIVA, https://vivalib.org/va/open/bookstore-cda. ↑
Ioana G. Hulbert. “US Library Survey 2022: Navigating the New Normal,” Ithaka S+R, 30 March 2023, https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.318642. ↑
“Activities,” TRLN, https://trln.org/activities/. ↑
All of OCUL’s formal Communities share the goal to ‘provide a forum for the exchange of information and ideas about particular services and areas of expertise.’ See: https://ocul.on.ca/ocul-communities and https://www.ocul.on.ca/projects/collaborative-futures. ↑
“OCUL Truth and Reconciliation Committee (OCUL-TR),” OCUL, https://ocul.on.ca/ocul-tr. ↑
“Leadership & Advocacy in the Scholarly Information Ecosystem,” Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation, https://ivpluslibraries.org/leadership-6-key-groups/leadership-advocacy-in-the-scholarly-information-ecosystem. ↑
Dylan Ruediger, “Archives in the Anthropocene: An Interview with Eira Tansey,” Ithaka S+R, 28 August 2023, https://sr.ithaka.org/blog/archives-in-the-anthropocene/. ↑
This issue has also been one of the conclusions of this recent report: Tracy Bergstrom, Oya Y. Rieger, and Roger C. Schonfeld, “The Second Digital Transformation of Scholarly Publishing: Strategic Context and Shared Infrastructure,” Ithaka S+R, 29 January 2024, https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.320210. ↑
These were the titles and affiliations of the interviewees when the research was conducted between May and November 2023. ↑
CCLP Project, https://sites.google.com/view/cclifecycleproject/home. ↑
“EAST Major Operating Policies,” EAST Libraries, https://eastlibraries.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/MajorOpPol-EAST_confirmed_20160620.pdf. ↑
“Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium,” Institute of Museum and Library Services, 2022, https://www.imls.gov/grants/awarded/lg-252402-ols-22. ↑
“BLC and EAST Announce Successful Transition of EAST into Independent Organization,” Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust, https://eastlibraries.org/member_resource/blc-and-east-announce-successful-transition-of-east-into-independent-organization/. ↑
For an example, see: “IPLC Letter to the Office of Science & Technology Policy,” Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation, 3 March 2023, https://ivpluslibraries.org/2023/03/iplc-letter-to-the-office-of-science-technology-policy/. ↑
Lisa Gazzillo, “Beinecke and Access Services Participate in BorrowDirect Pilot for Special Collections,” Yale University Campus Press, 25 May 2018, https://campuspress.yale.edu/libraryitnews/2018/05/25/beinecke-and-access-services-participate-in-borrowdirect-pilot-for-special-collections/. ↑
Anika, “OCUL Collaborative Futures to Move Forward with Ex Libras Alma and Primo,” Ontario Council of University Libraries, 12 July 2018, https://ocul.on.ca/ocul-collaborative-futures-to-move-forward-with-ex-libris. ↑
ORCID, “ORCID Announces Launch of New Global Participation Program and $1M Global Participation Fund,” EIN Presswire, 18 May 2022, https://www.einpresswire.com/article/572359879/orcid-announces-launch-of-new-global-participation-program-and-1m-global-participation-fund. ↑
“From Vision to Value: ORCID’s 2022-2025 Strategic Plan,” ORCID, 29 September 2021, https://info.orcid.org/2020-2025-strategic-plans/. ↑
“ORCID + Membership Benefits and Fees,” ORCID, https://info.orcid.org/membership/#direct-membership-fees. ↑
“TRLN Program Plan, 2021-2023,” Triangle Research Libraries Network, https://trln.org/trln-program-plan-2021-2023/. ↑
“Resource Sharing,” Virginia’s Academic Library Consortium, https://vivalib.org/va/resourcesharing. ↑

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