Research, Leadership, and Resource-Sharing Initiatives: The Role of Local Library Consortia in Access to Medical Information

Background

Iloilo City is one of the major areas in the Philippine archipelago of more than 7,100 islands. The city is a highly urbanized and the province where it is politically situated is the centre of education. However, the libraries have a long way to go to meet the 21st century concept that maximize utilization and access of the vast information superhighway. Libraries are looking for ways to address the colossal challenges and one avenue identified to address the issue is through creating a network where resources can be shared and concerted efforts among information professionals can benefit all the members.

A consortium is an association of independent libraries and/or library systems established by formal agreement, usually for the purpose of resource-sharing (Reitz, 2016). In the Philippines, library consortium dates back to the successive establishment of three consortia: the Academic Libraries Book Acquisition Services Association (ALBASA) in 1973, the Inter-Institutional Consortium (IIC) (now South Manila Inter-Institutional Consortium) in 1974, and the Mendiola Consortium (MC) in 1975 (Fresnido & Yap, 2014). Several other consortia spread in three major regions of the Philippine Archipelago.

In the Visayas Region, specifically in Iloilo City, the Inter-Institutional Consortium of Libraries started in February 21, 1980 with an institutional meeting of proposed Science Consortium that paved way to the birth of Inter-Institutional Consortium Libraries for Iloilo City through a Memorandum of Agreement. The members- institution were composed of University of San Agustin, Central Philippine University, University of the Philippines-Visayas and West Visayas State College. This group of academic libraries agreed to make available their library resources and services or instruction and research and other related academic activities for university libraries participating in institutions. In more recent years, three more institutions participated including Western Institute of Technology, John B. Lacson Foundation Maritime University and St. Paul University Iloilo.