The Orbis Cascade Alliance is a consortium of 37 academic libraries in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Recently, the Alliance completed the challenging task of organizing and completing a RFP for a shared Library Management Service and, currently, is in the initial stages of implementation. Editors of Collaborative Librarianship discussed this project with John F. Helmer, the Executive Director of the Orbis Cascade Alliance.
In this article, Lisa Ayre shares her viewpoint that it’s time for libraries to hold the ILS vendor’s feet to the fire and demand full support for both SIP2 and NCIP2.
In 2008, seven Michigan public libraries migrated to Evergreen, an open source integrated library system developed by the George Public Library Service. The Michigan Library Consortium and Grand Rapids Public Library provided the support, training, networking, and system administration for the system. This article examines the reasons for implementing an open source system and the challenges to running and sustaining it.
The volume of materials shipped between libraries and branches has grown very quickly. This growth caused service and budget problems for libraries, library networks, and commercial couriers. NISO formed a working group comprised of practitioners from various types of libraries and systems to recommend practices to improve performance and reduce costs for moving physical materials between libraries. The recommended practices include an introduction and sections related to management, automation, the physical move, and the future. In addition to describing the recommended practices, the authors briefly review the cause of the growth in library delivery volume, i.e., the development of patron-placed hold capability in integrated library systems and the issues and reactions in the library delivery community resulting from the rapid growth, as well as prospects for a future with declining delivery volume.
This paper describes the factors that led the Orbis Cascade Alliance, a 37 institution academic library consortium in the Pacific Northwest, to move to a shared library management system. The steps that the Alliance and its 37 member libraries took over a period of years are summarized, including the work of several research and planning groups and a formal Request for Information process. A subsequent Request for Proposal (RFP) process ended in the selection of Ex Libris Alma management system and Primo discovery services for Alliance libraries. The paper also describes the Alliance’s vision for the shared library management system, including collaborative technical services and cooperative collection development.
