Julia Gammon, University of Akron, Chair of OhioLink Consortium

Gammon, sponsored by the Iowa ACRL section, was invited to ILA to speak to a growing interest on the part of many academic librarians in exploring possible consortial arrangements in Iowa. She gave an overview of the history and functionality of OhioLINK, and later offered advice, cautioning that OhioLINK’s system is only one of many possible approaches to creating consortia.

OhioLINK’s philosophy is that everyone gets the same services, even the smaller institutions that are paying less according to the sliding scale. An important feature is multiple pickup places: one can borrow a book in one town and return it in another. Patrons also respond well to ordering online, with no librarian intermediary. They typically get the book in two days.

The main challenge in establishing OhioLINK was politics: fear of change, fear of loss of autonomy, and mistrust of partners and other ways of doing things. To minimize these problems, Gammon recommends keeping things low-key: keep everything voluntary, invite people to participate, be sure to have enthusiastic people on committees, and design a training and education plan. In Ohio, librarians proved to be better at selling the consortium than vendors, even those with library degrees.

Research continues to be important. In 2007, a collection assessment created by OhioLink and OCLC includes questions about usage: what subjects were being used or not used, who is using them, identifying duplication and determining circulation percentages. Gammon shared preliminary data, including the need for soft and hard caps on buying, predictability on what will be purchased and retained by looking at several years of data (for example, the increase in electronic book purchasing) and plans to create a centralized collection development unit—the most radical step so far.

Gammon suggested some ideas for Iowa, pointing out that a study group at the beginning is essential. Iowa’s strengths are the school and state libraries; building on them would be wise. Be bold, she suggests, call it a Cooperative Consortia, not a buying group. This is bigger and more extensive than a buying club.

A vigorous question and answer session followed the talk. Some questions included:
Q: How does the delivery system work? How are lending institutions selected for a particular request?
A: OhioLINK uses random delivery requests to prevent overburdening any one (i.e. large) institution.
Q: Have any institutions joined OhioLINK, then later quit?
A: Only one in the history of OhioLINK has quit. Even Antioch, with its business problems, has been able to stay in the consortium.
Q: How do vendors determine costs?
A: There is a lot of variety in vendor systems.

OhioLink can be visited at http://www.ohiolink.edu/

Submitted by Suzanne Araas Vesely, Newsletter Committee