What kinds of projects are suited to collaboration in information organizations?
Collaboration must be mutually beneficial to all participating.
Libraries have a lot in common with one another as they provide similar services as portals to information, have similar goals and have similar needs and challenges; therefore, it is not surprising that Libraries have had a long history of collaboration. Unquestionably, fulfilling user expectations and budget limitations stand out as persuasive incentives for libraries to cooperate and collaborate. Collaboration on collection development began early in all types of libraries and has become more feasible and expanded with advances in technology. Libraries and Librarians continue to embraced new technologies that enabled them to communicate and share with each other and their users more effectively, such as social media.
Libraries: Collection Development Collaboration
The early forms of library collection development collaboration began with material and resource sharing and then developed into a system of interlibrary loaning (ILL), then catalogue sharing and consortium purchasing. More recently, examples of collection collaboration include digitization projects and resource storage.
- Interlibrary loan arrangements can reduce duplication of materials and therefore extend collection budgets.
- New technology and the development of electronic library catalogues have given libraries the ability to easily share their bibliographic records.
- Purchasing consortia arrangements among libraries are sometimes used to acquire less used expensive items but primarily they have become a collaborative collection development strategy associated with electronic resource acquisitions.
Just to name a few. As technology develops libraries find new ways to provide better service and cut cost to collection development budgets. Social media is providing new opportunities in this cause.
Social Media and Collection Development Collaboration
Social Media has the potential to take library collection development collaboration to another level. Libraries are using social media tools to maintain two way communication with users and non-users and colleagues and vendors:
- Digital sharing … Libraries are scanning requested items, especially historical photos and sharing them in flickr, or emailing the scan rather than sending the original. Many image collections are being digitized and made accessible online for everyone.
- E-books … There is a shift in interlibrary loans to ebook purchasing. ILL has been a labour intensive and costly sharing process, as a result some libraries are shifting to purchasing requested material in electronic format as a less expensive alternative.
- Catalogue sharing … Bibliocommons is being adopted by many libraries as a new bibliographic records sharing opportunity. This also allows users to share collection suggestions.
- Blogs … Libraries use blogs to push information out about many things including collections such as new acquisitions. Libraries use internal blogs to share floating materials in order to keep the collections within a library system balanced. Blogs are also use to communicate with vendors.
- Communication tools … social media tools are helpful to facilitate collaborate and coordinate and negotiation with each other and vendors related to electronic resources.
Conclusion
The resounding push for collaborative collection development in all library types has been due to a desire to continue to provide quality service to the user community within budget restraints. As the technologies fostering collaboration become more mainstream collaborative collection development among library organizations can accomplish much more than any one library acting independently. Social media is opening up more opportunities and ease for collaboration of all forms but especially in the area of collection development.
References
New York Public Library. (2011) “The New York Public Library and Bibliocommons Partner To Create A New Innovative, Interactive Online Experience” Retrieved from http://www.nypl.org/press/press-release/2011/06/20/new-york-public-library-and-bibliocommons-partner-create-new-innovati
O’Dell, S. (2010). Opportunities and Obligations for Libraries in a Social Networking Age: A Survey of Web 2.0 and Networking Sites. J Libr Admin, 50(3)
Scott, Suzanne (2011) “Collaborative Scholarship in Library and Information Science,” SLIS Student Research Journal: Vol. 1: Iss. 1, Article 1. Available at: http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/slissrj/vol1/iss1/1
Tucker, James Cory, Bullian, J., Torrence, M.C. (2003). “Collaborate or Die! Collection Development in Today’s Academic Library”. The Reference Librarian. Vol. 40, Issue 83-84. Retrieved from http://www.mendeley.com/research/collaborate-or-die-collection-development-in-todays-academic-library/
This is well-written and I appreciate the care you have put into the post. I would call it a ‘blog essay’ and suggest it represents a more formal kind of writing in the medium.