Partners for success: A decade of cooperation and still on fire

Gale Symposium: Middle EastPartnering for Success

27 - 28 October 2015 Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Partners for success: A decade of cooperation

and still on fire

Houeida Kammourié-ChararaChair, Lebanese Academic Library Consortium

InfoCommons Librarian, LAU

Gale Symposium: Middle EastPartnering for Success

Gale Symposium: Middle East

Partnering for Success2

Definition Of Consortium

Consortia OR Consortiums.

“Formal association of a number of organizations, usually in a specific geographical area, with agreed goals and objectives.

Services covered can include collection development, cataloguing, computer alliances, systems support, education and training, interlibrary loans, library automation, purchasing, etc.” Keenan, S., & Johnston, C. (2000).


Partnering for Success

Consortia History1960s: Creation of union catalogs

Library Consortia flourish.

1970s: Interlibrary loans, joint storage, etc.

1980s: Automation

Stagnation period.

1990s: Re-flourishing of Consortia for electronic resources.

2000s: Consortium of Consortia.

2010s: Emergence of mobile devices and applications such as: Smart phones, e-book readers, iPads, and other handheld devices. Re-negotiation of existing deals (Turner, 2014)



LebaneseAcademicLibraryConsortium

LIDS



LALC “raison d’être” and more

To cope with changes that took place in the university environment in Lebanon.

To keep pace with users requests and expectations in academic libraries, mainly in the e-resources field.

“To cooperate in the selection, pricing negotiations and access methods of electronic resources in the best interest of the library users in an economical way for the library” (LALC mission).

In 2014 LALC started a new era ………….



LALC story

in 2001 University of Balamand invited major academic institutions in Lebanon to develop a library consortium of electronic resources.

Three private institutions replied to the UOB invitation, namely AUB, LAU and NDU (Board members). Jointly they formed LALC, the first Arab and Lebanese formal Academic Library Consortium.

LALC is the first Lebanese and Arab Library Consortium that joined ICOLC.

6

http://lalc.lau.edu.lb/





Administrative Structure• Each member library is represented by one librarian designated by the institution.

• The Consortium Coordinator is elected among LALC members for a period of three (3) years with

the possibility of renewal.

• Meetings are held on a rotation basis at the location of the member institutions.

• Budget planning, payments done on individual basis.

• Agreements before and after (?).

• No membership fees (?).

• Set procedures and guidelines for trialing, acquiring e-resources, & project proposals.

• In 2010 the Lebanese American University launched LALC website:http:lalc.lau.edu.lb

LALC is a “buying club” for e-resources



Attracting New Members?

Among 8 institutions approached since 2008, 4 are now LALCers:

Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik (USEK)

Board Member since October 2015

Lebanese International University

Beirut Arab University

Lebanese University

Université Saint Joseph

Haigazian University

Antonine University, and

American University of Science and Technology



In 2002 a draft was prepared for LALC By-Laws.

This draft had never been approved and was replaced by a Letter of Agreement (LOA).

In May 3rd 2004, a formal LOA was signed between LALC members in which the parties agreed to establish a consortium under the name of "Lebanese Academic Library Consortium – LALC”. After 2 years of active work, LALC status was officially announced.

The 2008 LOA included USJ and USEK in addition to the board members.

The 2014 LOA included two additional members, namely BAU and HU, and it is still on fire.

Letter of Agreement



Since 2014…LALC new trend

New era began with the renegotiation of the Big deals

packages.

According to Turner (2014, p.38) “Consortia are

focusing on renegotiating existing deals to derive some

savings to balance their shrinking budgets”.

Same for LALC



Trigger



Change of Management

Against sharing and helping

smaller institutions

Openness and renegotiation of

Big Deals packages

Old Management style

New Management style



How it started?



Trends in e-resources world

Stabilized Acquisitions

Renewing existing products

Renegotiating licenses

TRENDY LALC is “renegotiating Big Deals e-

journal packages that often involve multiyear

licenses with escalating cost commitments”

(Turner, 2014, p. 38).



Pricing

Charging a flat rate to the consortium, then LALC divides

the cost among its members.

Vendor determines what each participating library will pay

on the basis of use, full-time equivalent enrollment, etc.

(Turner, 2014, p. 42).



Licensing

Who is signing the licenses? LALC Legal entity

Licensing electronic resources through other

consortia?

Subscription agents negotiate licenses on behalf

of LALC members?



Invoicing

Vendors usually send invoices directly to the participating LALC

libraries for payment.

Agent pays vendor invoices and then charges back LALC

participating libraries.

For members also members of AMICAL, invoicing is

done via the consortium (Legal entity)



Consortia Barriers Cost of participating in consortia

Loss of local autonomy over collection decisions

“Healthy” Competition between higher education

institutions

Developing equitable cost-sharing structures

Library staff spend more time than they do when

dealing directly with a publisher or vendor (Turner,

2014, p. 38).

More than one consortium



Advantages

Break the taboo of “untouchable prices”

Negotiate from a position of strength

More discounts

Waive or stabilize price increases

Provide access to more content with less monies

Bargain better license terms



Current Challenges

Balanced contribution: Small vs Big consortium members (in terms

of budget NOT FTE).

Sustainable commitment to collaborative e-resource acquisitions

Potential Solution: Creating a Nonmember libraries status for

libraries willing to participate in an e-resource product deal,

where they pay a fee for the service in addition to the shared

cost of the product (Turner, 2014, p. 41).



Future Challenges

Sustainability AGAIN

e-book marketplace



Not available in my Institution



Lebanese ILL/DD Services: LIDS

The idea of having an ILL/DDS service was first conceived by LALC in 2004, but didn’t succeed due to internal private reasons.

In October 1, 2007 The Lebanese ILL/DD Services (LIDS) was born and ILL/DDS policies and procedures were drafted.

The main goal of LIDS is to initiate processes & services to expand resource sharing, and to produce a union list of journal holdings of member institutions



ILL/DDS at LAU

2007 LIDS: Lebanon-Requests via form among 10 institutions.

2008 WorldShare: Int’l- All countries members in OCLC

2008 AMICAL: France-Requests via emails among 25 members3 active members only (non members of OCLC)

2014 SUBITO: Germany (not via a consortium)

https://www.facebook.com/LIDS-Consortium-714676411911054/info/?tab=page_info

https://www.oclc.org/worldshare-ill.en.html

http://www.amicalnet.org/about

http://www.subito-doc.de/index.php?lang=en&mod=page&pid=Dokumentlieferung



LAU ILL/DDS Usage Stats 2008-2015

LIDS AMICAL OCLC SUBITO

Year Lending Borrowing Lending Borrowing Lending Borrowing Lending Borrowing

2007- 2008 66 15 0 1 29 164 0 0

2008 - 2009 56 0 1 0 77 356 0 0

2009- 2010 97 0 1 0 95 206 0 0

2010 - 2011 118 0 0 0 235 831 0 0

2011 - 2012 98 84 0 0 325 1040 0 0

2012 - 2013 229 133 6 0 455 917 0 0

2013 - 2014 163 208 18 0 702 907 0 0

2014 - 2015 245 225 1 17 664 780 0 22



Can we bypass ILL/DDS? #icanhazpdf



AUB BAU ESCWA HU LAU MEU NDU UOB USJ USEK

Banque du Liban

ex-Officio



What are other institutions doing?



Can we do more?



Lebanese Library Consortium

LeLC

E-

resources

Chapter

Cooperative

cataloging

Chapter

Info. Lit

Chapter

ILL/DDS

Chapter

Marketing &

Social Media

Chapter



ONE CONCLUSION

Together we are stronger



ReferencesAl-Chidiac, Randa.” The challenging & daring experiment: LALC.” eIFL Workshop, LAU, Beirut, March 2006.

Gardner, C., & Gardner, G. (2015, March). Bypassing Interlibrary Loan Via Twitter: An Exploration of #icanhazpdf Requests.,

2015 . Paper presented at ACRL 2015, Portland, Oregon. Retrieved from

http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/conferences/confsandpreconfs/2015/Gardner.pdf

Kammourié-Charara, Houeida. "Academic library consortia with examples from the Arab World.“ MELCOM 25th Conference,

Beirut. May 2003.

Kammourié-Charara, Houeida. “ LALC: One more time. Special Library Association, Arabian Gulf Chapter: Pre-conference

workshop, Doha. 2008.

Kammourié-Charara, Houeida. "The Role of Consortia in Academic Libraries: A Case Study of the Lebanese Academic Library

Consortium (LALC)." Diss. U of Wales, 2003.

Keenan, S., & Johnston, C. (2000). Concise dictionary of library and information science. (2nd ed.). London: Bowker-Saur.

Kopp, J. J. (1998). Library consortia and information technology: The past, the present, the promise. Information Technology

and Libraries, 17(1), 7-12. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/215831831?accountid=27870

http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/conferences/confsandpreconfs/2015/Gardner.pdf

http://search.proquest.com/docview/215831831?accountid=27870



ReferencesLebanese Academic Library Consortium (2004). Annual Report, 2003-2004.

Lebanese Academic Library Consortium (2008). Annual Report, 2005-2006 & 2006-2007.

Lebanese Academic Library Consortium (2012). Annual Report, 2009-2010, 2010-2011 & 2011-2012.

Reason, B. N., & Darko-Ampem, K. (2002). Developments in academic library consortia from the 1960s through to 2000: A

review of the literature. Library Management, 23(4), 203-212. Retrieved from


Turner, C. N. (2014). E-resource acquisitions in academic library consortia. Library Resources & Technical Services, 58(1), 33-

48. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1541487993?accountid=27870

Websites:

AMICAL http://www.amicalnet.org/

LALC http://lalc.lau.edu.lb/

International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/

OCLC http://www.oclc.org/default.htm



http://www.amicalnet.org/

http://lalc.lau.edu.lb/

http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/

http://www.oclc.org/default.htm



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Partners for success: A decade of cooperation and still on fire

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