Library Consortium

Contributing to student success and reduced inequity

The consortium strives to remove barriers that stand in the way of student success and a more equitable future. Drawing on skills, values, and resources unique to the field of librarianship, the consortium:  

• Mobilizes collaborations across the consortium libraries that empower their communities to develop the information and digital literacy skills to make informed decisions about privacy and enable lifelong learning.
• Applies an equity-lens to its activities. This lens identifies new opportunities and helps ensure that the consortium thinks deliberately about its roles and responsibilities in support of equity.
• Engages in and sustains initiatives that maintain the consortium libraries’ roles as leaders in efforts to reduce the costs of course materials and increase openness.
• Improves the diversity and accessibility of library collections and services.

Deepening and broadening collaborations across the consortium’s membership and beyond

The consortium’s collaborative activities encompass the work of all library personnel, serve to strengthen its individual institutions, and are carried out in a spirit of trust, collegiality, and shared commitment to serving the growing needs of the libraries’ communities. These activities occur not just within and among libraries but also with campus partners and other organizations with congruent goals and values. The consortium:

• Provides the structures of analysis, decision-making, and operations through which the consortium libraries scale-up collaborations to leverage the potentials of their personnel and systems.
• Pursues and sustains external collaborations that are viable, impactful, and in alignment with its mission.
• Enables personnel at the consortium libraries to grow and flourish professionally.

Maintaining and furthering development of robust and accessible collections

Scarcities of funding and space make it increasingly difficult to build, provide access to, and preserve collections. Additionally, the nature of collection development is changing as libraries increasingly go about this work in a networked environment where collections are shared to maximize their impact and discoverability while reducing costs. The consortium:

• Optimizes the ability of researchers and learners to search across the consortium libraries’ collections and beyond, find and request what they need, and receive it quickly.
• Provides opportunities for consortium libraries to engage in collaborative collection development activities that reduce costs while still giving their communities access to the materials they need. 
• Provides guidance to help consortium libraries to digitize, preserve, and provide access to archival and special collections and institutional research and data.

Helping to collect and apply assessment data to advocate for member libraries

The consortium plays vital roles in enabling assessments and serving as a conduit for showcasing the value, accomplishments, and evolving roles of its member libraries. Compelling narratives about the benefits that the libraries bring to their communities are given depth and power by assessments that map to the interests and concerns of key audiences. The consortium:

• Provides resources and expertise to help its member libraries to assess their impacts relevant to the outcomes that drive decisions and resource allocations.
• Promotes the value of member libraries in ways that align with and reinforce these libraries’ own advocacy activities.