Collaborating to Explore Controlled Digital Lending as a Library Consortium

Collaborating to Explore Controlled Digital Lending as a Library Consortium

Michael Rodriguez, Nathan Mealey, Charlie Barlow
Copyright: © 2023 |Pages: 16
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-2515-2.ch005
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Abstract

In 2020–2021, the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) explored the potential for controlled digital lending (CDL) across the library consortium. Over the course of a year, the BLC's CDL Working Group engaged with internal stakeholders and external partners to develop a strategic vision for consortial CDL that received strong support from the BLC's Board of Directors. The group arrived at this vision through intensive collaboration, working closely as a group and engaging with the BLC's various membership communities while concurrently engaging with vendors and external entities to cross-pollinate ideas and co-create strategies. The BLC's resultant vision for consortial CDL is also predicated on powerful intra-consortial and inter-consortial collaborations to create the technologies for making CDL possible. This chapter is a case study of how this vision emerged and demonstrates its applicability to other types of consortial collaboration.
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Setting The Stage

Library Consortia

According to the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, a library consortium (plural: consortia) is

any local, statewide, regional, or interstate cooperative association of libraries that provides for the systematic and effective coordination of the resources of schools, public, academic, and special libraries and information centers, for improving services to the clientele of such libraries. (Universal Service Support, 1997)

The scale, structure, and scope of activities is wide-ranging. Consortium leaders are known to joke that, “if you know one library consortium, you know one library consortium,” highlighting the variety inherent to this work. Consortia may operate internationally, nationally, regionally, statewide, or even within a single municipality. Some are informal collaborations, while others are well-established, independent, nonprofit organizations or state-sponsored institutions. A library consortium may consist of a single type of library or multiple types of libraries. Some consortia exist for a specific singular purpose, while others pursue multiple activities on behalf of their members. Most focus on one or more of the following activities (Arch & Gilman, 2017):

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    Resource sharing activities, including interlibrary loan and delivery services.

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    Systems and infrastructure activities, including integrated library systems, shared off-site storage, and digital repositories.

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    Group purchasing activities, including cooperative purchasing of library materials and databases and licenses for electronic resources.

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    Training and professional development activities to strengthen the expertise of library workers.

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    Advocacy activities to influence commercial vendors and government entities on issues of significance to the library and information community.

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