A Panel Discussion with (L to R) Nancy Seamans of the University of Iowa, Jane Campagna of Scott Community College, Becky Mather of the AEA, Julia Gammon, and Mary Wegner of the State Library of Iowa

Julie Gammon stayed for a second session, moderating a panel discussion on the current status and future potential for consortial agreements among Iowa Libraries. Each participant first shared their own involvement in a corsotium or cooperative agreement in Iowa.

Becky Mather described the many services provided to Iowa libraries by the IEC, including deeply discounted prices on office and janitorial supplies, AV and computer equipment, and software and database subscriptions. Mather asserted that many schools would not be able to afford database subscriptions without the help of this consortium.

Jane Campagna gave the audience a brief history and overview of the consortial arrangements between libraries of all types in the Quad Cities area. PALS (formerly Quad-LINK) began in the 1980’s as a way for area libraries to share resources. This group has a shared catalog, continuing education programs, book delivery arrangements among the member libraries, and group purchasing for office products. Campagna stated that although PALS has its issues to contend with -- among them the problem of academic libraries having less of a voice in the organization – “students wouldn’t be served as well without” the consortium.

Campagna also touched on the ICCOC, which is a consortium of community colleges, not just their libraries. Among the services offered through the consortium are WebFeat federated search system and continuing education opportunities. This group is also not without it problems, but Campagna passed on one bit of advice regarding consortiums: “everybody needs to play fair”!

Nancy Seamans discussed some of the “cooperative arrangements” the regents universities have, and mentioned in particular the University of Iowa's focus on having a stronger relationship with the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC). Seamans had obviously thought a lot of issues around consortiums and other possible cooperative arrangements among libraries, expressing many thoughtful and engaging comments and questions. She and other at the UI are interested in “expanding the possibilities of what a shared institutional resource might be”. She suggested the next step might be an inventory of collaborations already taking place in libraries of all types all over Iowa.

Mary Wegner gave an excellent summary of all the State Library does to support our libraries, the main services being the SILO Locator union catalog, discounted FirstSearch and EBSCOhost databases, and support of resource sharing by providing partial reimbursement for ILL costs. In Wegner’s view, the big hurdle in Iowa to having a statewide consortium is that Iowans are “big on local control”, with very few libraries having even a shared catalog. She asserted that any consortium would be financially challenging for the state, but that we first need to clarify what the need is, and start having discussions about what is possible.

Submitted by Kate Hess, Newsletter Committee