Library
consortia have mostly come into existence through two
motivations. First is the desire of librarians to work
together, to work collegially and to make information readily
accessible. The second motivation is to achieve economies of
scale or savings for their
organisations.
Organisational relationships,
particularly in the not-for-profit sector, are changing
rapidly making it even more important to understand the very
nature of consortia relationships. Existing work behaviour may
or may not be the appropriate behaviour for the future.
Changes in all working relationships
require adaptation in style, re-alignment in structures and
often the acquisition of new operating skills. We deal with
the implications of these realignments daily. It is also
easily observed that the rate of this change is occurring more
swiftly than in previous years.
 Collaborative styles of behaviour
The Future of Work by John Malone
concludes that the nature of organisational relationships is
moving into a mode which is characterised by collaborative
styles of behaviour. He highlights that these changes are
necessary because of the demands of societal complexity; and
because not only are the answers not known 'at the top of the
organisation', we need to find ways to utilise the knowledge
levels of the organisation to overcome 'top-down' management
strategies.
Organisations are constantly
restructuring in order to respond to one pressure or another.
Restructuring occurs so frequently that new terms are required
to describe this process. The term 're-alignment' is now used
as a means of diverting attention to the new purpose.
Researchers such as Malone talk about the capacity of
organisations to make decisions locally with access to remote
and of course, local information. In this, decentralisation is
a vital direction. But decentralisation requires not only an
empowering of local points of service but also a real and
fundamental re-examination of structures and delivered
services.
By this I mean
that there is a real opportunity because of sharply decreasing
communication cost structures, to adopt different
organisational patterns. These patterns will result in some
services being discarded from the current delivery suite and
others being delivered in a collaborative fashion. Too often
the spectre of industrial relations diverts organisations from
a fundamental re-examination of their services. Malone notes
that in any such process: '...as organisations become more
decentralised, as knowledge work becomes increasingly
important, taking advantage of people's true intelligence and
creativity will become one of the most critical capabilities
of successful businesses'. 2
The skills of library and information people are
core.
New
Zealand libraries lack written policies for
cooperation
The imperative
for librarians in the development of cooperative structures
has never been profit. A soon to be published
article 3
details many of the studies into
cooperative and collaborative activity. Finnerty identifies
that of all the joint library activities taking place in New
Zealand, less than 10 percent have a written policy and only
22 percent have a written contract.
This degree of informality has all
the hallmarks of cooperative activity rather than formal and
committed collaborative activities. The respondents to this
study (79 percent of them) said they wanted more joint
activities. Given the gap between the desire for more of this
activity and the lack of real commitment, it is worth asking
whether librarians do really know how to move collaboration
forward? We like working together and understand the benefits
and rewards, but we do not want to cramp our institutional
powers and responsibilities with serious and contracted
arrangements.
A recent
conference 4 drew the
following list of opportunities and challenges for library
consortia:
Opportunities for
Consortia
 |
To
motivate libraries to remain relevant to patrons and
users. |
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To
leverage off vendor experiences. |
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To
influence government and funding bodies.
|
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To
purchase well. |
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To go
beyond the sharing of resources and content.
|
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To create
commercial ideas and concepts. |
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To develop
library staff and information professionals.
|
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To better
understand users' needs and expectations.
|
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To help
libraries deliver their primary goal (for their parent
organisations). |
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To
establish 'guerrilla' consortia - specific needs in
time. |
|
|
Steve
O'Connor, CEO, CAVAL Collaborative Solutions.
Challenges for
Consortia
|
Sustainability.
|
|
Chasing
the very big deals. |
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Fracturing
the market with too many consortia. |
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Duplication of effort and resource
utilisation. |
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Keeping
fresh - not fading nor lurching. |
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Maintaining flexibility.
|
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Resources
required for consortia operation. |
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Roles and
responsibilities of consortia member organizations.
|
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Volunteer
nature of participation - sustainable?
|
Moving
into this new world of management and resources sharing
requires different skills and approaches. The Future of
Consortia challenges listed above highlight the intense effort
which librarians are investing in developing and maintaining
consortia, while being acutely aware of the un-sustainability
of volunteers. However, as Finnerty shows, at least in New
Zealand, librarians have not yet been willing to change
structures nor to adopt different working and power
relationships to each other in order to allow progress of
their united agendas.
Strategic
future of consortia
The Strategic
Future of consortia will embrace four main areas:
|
Content management
that includes access, new products, timeliness and
efficiency. |
|
Market relevance which
creates and anticipates demand and in the process
creates an identity for those who are members of the
consortium. |
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Innovative
partnerships including those beyond the boundaries of
libraries.
|
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Capability which will
include governance, funding and staffing for the
long-term and active support of library members.
|
The issues
raised in this paper are clearly complex dealing with
knowledge management, falling communication costs,
organisational structural responses, and the place of the
individual professional. Neglected, they will be huge
opportunities lost. Grasped, they will offer significant new
skills and roles in the knowledge and information economies.
1
John Malone The Future of Work. Boston, Harvard Business
School Press, 2004.
2 Op
cit p. 153
3
Colleen Finnerty "An exploratory study of collaboration in New
Zealand Tertiary Libraries" AARL 2005.
4 Future of
Consortia: a conference held by Caval Collaborative
Solutions in conjunction with its 25 th
Anniversary Celebrations. Melbourne, Caval, October,
2003.
5
Future of Consortia Workshop. Caval Collaborative Solutions,
Melbourne, Australia. August 2004.
Steve O'Connor is the CEO of Caval
Collaborative Solutions, Melbourne, Australia. CAVAL offers
training courses for librarians on many subjects. More details
here
.
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