Posts tagged under: Resource Sharing


How resource sharing and collections data can inform collaboration

By its very nature, resource sharing between libraries is a form of collaboration. Most libraries have agreements and processes in place that enable them to fill collection gaps and provide for users’ needs through resource sharing partners. But is there value in pursuing a more deliberate, data-driven strategy when building your resource sharing groups? Might such a strategy reveal unexpected partnering opportunities?

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Controlled digital lending: Past successes can guide our future

When the COVID-19 pandemic created barriers to traditional information access, library workers reacted immediately to help make up the difference. I don’t think I’ve talked to a single person whose library didn’t put forward major, sometimes dramatic efforts to ramp up “anytime, anywhere” access to resources. And that includes forays into controlled digital lending (CDL).

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Getting smarter

Imagine sending an unexpected video call invite to ten colleagues at different organizations two years ago. My guess is that most would have been surprised, some annoyed. But after a year of working remotely, the response would be much different. And even as we transition back to working in person, that option will be one used more often going forward. Because in many circumstances, it’s simply a smarter choice.

So, why didn’t we make that choice before?

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Why a “Library on-demand” vision benefits from pandemic wisdom

If it wasn’t for COVID-19, I can safely say I never would have biked the Haleakal? volcano. Well, to be honest, I still haven’t. But while I’ve been mostly locked in my house this past year, I decided to invest in a stationary bike. And I trained for an endurance activity of five, one-hour rides that match the twists, turns, and elevations of the famous Hawaiian volcano.

Of course, it’s not the same as a real ride on a real bike on a real road on a real volcano. But the work I had to do to get in shape was real, the final achievement was real, and the connections I made with some new biking friends were real. And even if I never make it to the actual volcano, I will absolutely do a virtual ride like this again.

My experience also helped me realize something about the transition to a post-pandemic reality that’s starting slowly around the world. We need to carefully consider what we leave behind and what we take forward when we return to “normal.”

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Global library discovery and fulfillment: How we’re the same and how we differ

When we presented last year’s Global Council report on access to open content, we got a lot of great feedback. Both from Council delegates—who reported that it exceeded their expectations—and from our membership and the library community in general. The report provided insights on an important topic that hadn’t been explored in that way before: to gain a collective global understanding of the activities, investments, and efforts libraries are engaged with around open content. This report is just one of the ways that Global Council works on behalf of libraries by gathering insights each year to help inform the profession and OCLC on topics of importance to the library profession.

This year Global Council sponsored a survey to gather “Global Perspectives on Discovery and Fulfillment,” with a goal of gathering enough information from each of our three geographic regions to be able to make statistically significant comparisons if and when possible. I’m pleased to share that we hit that mark and can report back on a few interesting differences.

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Four interlibrary loan trends to watch in 2016

Top ILL titles for 2015

At least once a year, we query the WorldShare ILL database and see how the trends in interlibrary loan are developing. We count titles a little differently than other lists. Rather than splitting into fiction/nonfiction we look at loan requests vs. copy requests (loans of an entire book vs. a request to copy a single article or part of a larger work). The list of top copy requests is, as you might expect, heavily weighted toward the medical, psychological and scientific realms. It’s the loan requests that are more interesting.

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