Recent Trends in Statewide Academic Library Consortia

HISTORICALLY, FORMED consortia for the primary purpose ACMEMlC LIBRNES of sharing printed materials. Recently, academic libraries are forming consortia to provide common access to electronic resources across the Internet, and they are forming these consortia on a statewide basis. This article describes five of these newer statewide efforts: GALILEO in Georgia, the Louisiana Library Network, OhioLink, TexShare in Texas, and VIVA in Virginia. In describing these consortia, particular attention will be paid to participating libraries, core programs, the reason for formation, funding, the involvement of the larger academic libraries in the state, and governance. Similarities and differences are discussed and emerging patterns in statewide academic library consortia dilineated. INTRODUCTION Academic libraries have long formed consortia for the purpose of sharing existing physical resources-principally books and journals held by member libraries. This is done in recognition of the fact that a group of libraries has a combined set of resources that is greater than the resources of any single member. Indeed, studies have indicated that, contrary to what might be assumed, there is great diversity among collections, and even the smallest library contributes something unique (Potter, 1986). Recent figures from academic libraries in Ohio found that, of 5.7 million different titles held by thirty-one libraries, 58 percent were held just once. On average, 23 percent of each library’s collection was William Gray Potter, University of Georgia Libraries, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-1645 LIBRARYTRENDS, Vol. 45, No. 3, Winter 1997, pp. 416-434 01997 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois POTTER/STATEWIDE ACADEMIC LIBRARY CONSORTIA 417 unique to that library (Byerly, 1996). Alliances to share resources, then, make considerable sense because all the participating libraries benefit from access to titles they do not hold in their own collections. To expedite the sharing of resources, academic library consortia have promoted the formation of union catalogs and expedited interlibrary loan, The OCLC Online Union Catalog lends itself to supporting interlibrary loan and provides the means for a consortium to facilitate requests among its members. Consortia that link circulation systems, such as LCS in Illinois and OhioLINK, permit users to determine the circulation status of a book at another library and initiate an online request. Courier services have been established to move materials from one library to another and high speed telefacsimile has become common to move copies of documents either across phone lines or across the Internet. While the chief reason for academic libraries to form consortia has been to share existing physical resources, a new trend is becoming evident or at least more pronounced. Libraries are forming alliances for the purpose of identifylng and addressing common needs arising from developments in information technology, especially the growing importance of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Specifically, it is becoming increasingly possible to offer a variety of electronic resources across the Internet. These resources include abstracting and indexing databases, the full-text of journals, the full-text of reference works, large collections of literary text, and extensive sets of digitized images. The best possible access to these resources requires high-speed workstations with access to a capacious network. Libraries are forming consortia to provide these resources on a suitable network with capable workstations. Moreover, the prevalent pattern appears to be that academic libraries are forming these consortia on a statewide basis. CONCENTRIC CONSORTIA Academic libraries have many overlapping consortia1 arrangements. The University of Georgia, for example, has alliances through the University Center in Georgia, a consortium of academic institutions in the Atlanta metropolitan area. It also has alliances through the University System of Georgia, the Georgia Online Database (GOLD), and Georgia Library Learning Online (GALILEO) . Beyond the state, the University of Georgia holds membership in several regional alliances, including the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL), the Southeastern Library Network (SOLINET), and the Southern University Research Alliance (SURA) . On a national level, it is active in OCLC, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), the US. Agricultural Information Network (USAIN), and numerous other amalgamations of libraries. .At first glance, this is a seeming hodgepodge, but each group serves a different purpose and each is 418 LIBRARY TRENDS/WINTER 1997 important. Most large academic libraries can plot a similar set of consortia1 arrangements. These arrangements are like concentric rings-city, metropolitan area, state, region, national, and international. For each library, any one level may be more important than the others depending upon the mission and nature of the institutions. VALUE OF sT.4TEM'IDE CONSORTIA For most academic libraries, statewide cooperation offers distinct advantages and incentives. The state provides a predetermined political and geographical grouping of libraries. There are often common governing agencies for pnblicly supported institutions of higher education, perhaps a board of regents or a coordinating board for higher education. State government also exercises control over the publicly supported colleges and universities and, of course, provides much of the funding. The extent of direct interest that the governor or legislature takes in the operations of the libraries varies by state, but this interest is always a factor. The fact that a group of libraries shares a common funding source, be it directly through elected officials or through a board of regents or oversight agency, is an important reason to build statewide cooperative systems. There is great appeal in efforts to pool resources and in cooperating to control costs. Beyond government, institutions in a state often share common social and cultural bodies, including foundations or economic development boards that have an interest in seeing the libraries of a state cooperate and prosper. Pride of place is also a factor in statewide cooperation. People want to promote their state and look favorably upon efforts that will demonstrably improve library services. Other types of consortia, such as national groups of similar libraries, do not offer all of these factors. They may offer others, such as a way for research libraries to cooperate, that are also very important but, in the United States, state-based cooperation makes sense for public institutions. Further, while not all of these factors apply to private institutions, they are still part of the state and can also realize benefits. CURRENT OF STATEWIDE STATUS CONSORTIA Statewide cooperation among academic libraries is not new. Virtually every state has some level of formal resource sharing among its academic libraries with Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, California, and Missouri being among the most advanced in their efforts over the past two decades. Of course, it should be pointed out that OCLC grew out of a statewide library consortium. As pointed out above, however, most of these efforts focused on the physical sharing of printed materials through union catalogs, expedited POTTER/STATEWIDE ACADEMIC LIBRARY CONSORTIA 419 interlibrary loan, and shared or linked circulation systems. Recently, new statewide efforts have been undertaken, often with the expressed purpose of providing an electronic or virtual library, a core of electronic resources, as the focus. Many of the more established systems are also working to offer electronic resources, grafting them onto existing programs. The newer consortia also address the need for sharing physical resources. However, these newer consortia are focused more on electronic resources. They recognize that electronic resources will be increasingly important and that there are benefits in banding together to offer them, using the leverage of a group and the advantages of a common funding source. This is not to say that the more established systems are not interested in offering electronic resources, only that they were not founded for this purpose. PURPOSE OF THIS ARTICLE This article will describe five of these newer statewide efforts. In alphabetical order, these are GALILEO in Georgia, the Louisiana Library Network, OhioLINK, TexShare in Texas, and VIVA in Virginia. In describing them, particular attention will be paid to: participating libraries; core programs; reason for formation; funding; involvement of the larger academic libraries in the state; and