John F. Helmer Executive Director Orbis Cascade Alliance Partnerships Between Libraries: meeting patron needs through collaboration Northwest Interlibrary Loan and Resource Sharing Conference September 16, 2005

2 “Now it's a very difficult job and the only way to get through it is we all work together as a team and that means you do everything I say.” -- Michael Caine as Charlie Croker in The Italian Job.

3 Orbis Cascade Alliance Oregon & Washington Private & Public 2-year and 4-year community colleges, private colleges, public research universities

4 7 Puget Sound 5 Eastern 2 Central 2 Southern 17 Willamette Valley 33 Members Central Oregon Comm. College Central Washington University Clark College Eastern Oregon University Eastern Washington University George Fox University Lane Community College Lewis & Clark College Linfield College Mt. Hood Community College Oregon State University Oregon Health & Science Univ. Oregon Institute of Technology Oregon State University Pacific University Portland Community College Portland State University Reed College Saint Martin’s College Seattle Pacific University Seattle University Southern Oregon University The Evergreen State College University of Oregon University of Portland University of Puget Sound University of Washington Walla Walla College Washington State University Western Oregon University Western Washington University Whitman College Willamette University Cascade Range

5 Summit Courier Service Electronic Resources Conferences & Workshops Major Services

6 Summit Union Catalog summit.orbiscascade.org

7 8.1 million unique titles 26 million items 65% unique

8 Items loaned: FY03-05

9 244 libraries served through 62 dropsites in Oregon, Washington, & Idaho hour delivery 300,000 packages / year Courier Service

10 Why collaborate? NetworkRobustnessBandwidth AccessStandard clientWireless, PDA, etc. BudgetsTightVery tight ExpectationsRisingHigh & rising Central fundingYes? CompetitionRising RiskRisingHigh 1990’s2000’s Digital productsGrowingMany & growing

11 Successes over the recent past Continuing education, sharing information, professional development Electronic resource purchasing ILL & other resource sharing systems - Sharing physical collections - Sharing digital collections Digital reference Courier service

12 Physical Asset Repository Successes over the near future? Digital Asset Repository Collaboration beyond “membership”

 High density storage  Library buildings put to best use  Cooperative collection development  Home for other collaborative projects - Digitization - Preservation - Instruction Physical Asset Repository

14

15

16 Digital Asset Repository AKA : Digital objects repository Institutional repository Collecting, organizing, and preserving intellectual property produced by member institutions (e.g., articles, data sets, software, images, moving images, sound, etc.) Digitizing physical assets owned by member institutions Providing access to all digital assets across disciplines, material types, and institutions.

17 Collaboration Beyond Membership Serving non-members directly Collaboration with vendors, computing centers, publishers, patrons Collaboration among consortia Informal communication Formal programmatic affiliation Merged programs Changing outdated organizations Creating umbrella or coordinating organizations Merging consortia

John F. Helmer Executive Director