Project ReShare

ReShare update: scoping, membership, finances, and commitment to the vision

ReShare has grown substantially since it was first established in 2018, expanding from its initial 13 member organizations with a shared mission to create an open source, community-owned resource sharing platform, to having more than thirty member organizations by early 2023, offering a fully operational system. Four leading consortia – PALCI, ConnectNY, Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation, and TRLN – are actively using the ReShare platform, with CAVAL and Minitex in the process of implementing. The bulk of the initial software development work was provided by Knowledge Integration and Index Data, as well as Lehigh University Libraries. Development of ReShare’s controlled digital lending (CDL) functionality is also well-underway, in partnership with the Boston Library Consortium.

In Spring 2023, the ReShare Steering Committee recognized the need for a strategic planning retreat, given the meteoric growth of the community and increasing interest in developing a wide range of tools to address multiple resource sharing use cases. Questions around ReShare’s roadmap, sustainability, and development decisions were also growing as the potential scope of the project expanded.

The two-day intensive planning retreat was designed with the help of consultant and facilitator Dr. Deb Mashek. The retreat’s goals were to characterize the complexity of ReShare’s work, articulate learnings to date, and plan for the future in order to sustain the continuous and on-going development of the community.

Perhaps the most complex issues the Steering Committee grappled with during the retreat were 1) the recognition that two possibly competing platforms had emerged within the community with implications and risk to ReShare’s overall sustainability, and 2) a lack of consensus with respect to the meaning and implementation of “community ownership” in the context of ReShare product development. Central to this conversation were issues of sustainability and a focus on the ReShare Code of Conduct’s requirement that participants “not replace community infrastructure; instead, improve it.”

Pursuant to those retreat discussions, the Steering Committee reasserted that the ReShare software development roadmap, including the prioritization and application of any centralized, community funds or resources, must be owned and directed by ReShare’s membership.

On the final day of the retreat, the Steering Committee voted:

to support a pause in major roadmap decisions to enable the Steering Committee to reflect and fully articulate ReShare’s community ownership process in a way that engaged ReShare members;
to support an initial, if temporary, moratorium on the use of the ReShare brand name in describing the development effort that had previously been referred to as “DCB” or “direct consortial borrowing” (an effort which was initially defined in the MOBIUS RFP and funded by EBSCO) until its technical implications were more fully understood by ReShare members, and until it had been submitted and vetted through an accepted ReShare community process.* (See Notes)

At the retreat’s conclusion, members of the Steering Committee expressed a desire that ReShare’s community ownership processes be inclusive and applicable to all members, and that the features and functionality represented in DCB development efforts be integrated into ReShare’s platform and community ownership processes in the future.

Following the retreat, a number of ReShare members – namely EBSCO, Knowledge Integration, MOBIUS, MCLS, and Marmot – opted to depart from the ReShare community to support DCB development efforts external to ReShare with a distinct and separate set of business needs and expectations for community governance and process.

The ReShare Steering Committee’s decisions about the application of its brand name reflected careful consideration of project sustainability and scoping, keeping in mind the initiative’s core values of trust, transparency, and community ownership. While the retreat outcomes caused disruption that the Steering Committee is now addressing, the past few weeks have sharpened the Committee’s focus on service to library and consortia-articulated use cases, needs, and community expectations. Steering Committee members are working diligently on preserving the integrity of ReShare’s shared community development vision, and providing opportunities for effective future collaboration with external partners, including the newly separated DCB initiative.

Also following the retreat, and with the impending departure from the community of the organization that serves as the project’s fiscal agent, the Steering Committee began expediting the transition of the project’s financial management with a focus on transparency. The next Community Meeting will include a detailed financial report.

The ReShare Steering Committee will meet again on August 25, 2023 at the University of Chicago. The priorities for this meeting are to:

further define and articulate community ownership expectations and processes
revise governance structures and membership to support current and anticipated needs
create a plan for financial and organizational sustainability, including identifying a new fiscal agent to support an optimized and transparent financial model.

The Steering Committee has been energized by the opportunity to revisit and recommit to our initial vision. We have scheduled a community meeting for Thursday, September 14, 12:00-1:30 pm EST, via Zoom. Community members will be receiving a separate calendar invite for this meeting. In preparation for that meeting, we invite all members to share ideas and questions via this form. The community meeting will be an opportunity to discuss form submissions and to provide updates on product roadmapping. The meeting will be open to all ReShare community members.

Sent on behalf of voting members of the ReShare Steering Committee:

Charlie Barlow, Ginny Boyer, Kristin Calvert, Lisa Croucher, Sebastian Hammer, David Larsen, Boaz Nadav Manes, Julia Proctor, Zheng Ye (Lan) Yang

NOTES:

In August 2022, MOBIUS announced that it would implement ReShare Returnables alongside its migration to FOLIO. At the time, Knowledge Integration had indicated it would develop features in ReShare Returnables to support direct consortial borrowing (DCB) for MOBIUS, a core feature in their legacy INN-Reach system. Other ReShare member consortia also indicated interest in development of this functionality on the ReShare platform.

DCB fundamentally differs from other forms of ILL, lending directly to a patron at another institution, rather than to a borrowing/requesting library. To support DCB, ReShare’s underlying platform required significant modifications, and ultimately, Knowledge Integration, with funding from EBSCO, decided to pursue DCB functionality as a wholly separate software stack, with the intention to brand the product as “ReShare DCB.”

Because EBSCO and Knowledge Integration built DCB functionality via a competitive RFP process without direct input from ReShare’s Steering Committee or the wider community, DCB was not incorporated into the ReShare roadmap or evaluated under established processes to assess new functional requirements. The DCB platform, as it was developed for MOBIUS, is independent from ReShare’s existing code base.

UPDATE, 9/21/23: The original version of this news item has been updated to remove 1) a statement regarding fiscal agency and 2) the statement that the name of the DCB platform had not yet been determined as of original publication date.

UPDATE, 8/25/23: The original version of this news item has been updated to remove the statement that the DCB platform is “expected to be tied to EBSCO’s proprietary discovery platform, Locate.”

Open Project ReShare Meeting on March 20

We are pleased to open up our regular quarterly ReShare community meeting to anyone interested in Project ReShare on March 20th at 12pm ET.

During this call, we’ll describe the development progress made by the community to-date, share news of current implementations, and give insight into future development directions.

We invite you to join us, learn about ReShare, and discuss!

When: Mar 20, 2023 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0pduGqpzsqGNa-7XE-IPDF5pcGSXNC072Y

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation (IPLC) to Implement ReShare Returnables

The Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation (IPLC) recently announced their intention to implement ReShare Returnables in Summer 2022. IPLC also intends to become a member of the ReShare Community.

IPLC writes “The new software will create more efficient staff workflows, eliminating some of the time and complicated steps needed to deliver items to patrons.”

Project ReShare Welcomes Boston Library Consortium

December 22, 2021

Project ReShare closes out the year by welcoming the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) to the ReShare Community. In addition to contributing leadership and engagement to the Project, BLC will be making a significant financial contribution. Founded in 1970, the BLC is an academic library consortium serving 21 public and private universities, liberal arts colleges, state and special research libraries in the northeastern United States.

The BLC’s collective collection has been a cornerstone throughout its history, and the consortium has always sought creative ways to leverage the collection for the benefit of member institutions. With the transformative opportunity of controlled digital lending (CDL), BLC is once again seeking an opportunity to make resource sharing more valuable and effective for its members.

BLC’s recent efforts to develop a path forward for consortial controlled digital lending (CDL) have illuminated the significant need for alternative resource sharing technologies to those currently available from vendors, in particular the need for community-led and community-governed alternatives such as Project ReShare. “The current library technology market has left libraries to cobble together solutions that meet local needs that fail to truly capitalize on the transformative potential that CDL offers,” said Charlie Barlow, BLC’s executive director. “The possibilities for an interoperable solution developed collaboratively by and for libraries and consortia hold great promise.”

The initial $100,000 financial commitment from the BLC is intended to accelerate the development path for CDL functionality within the ReShare client.

For Dorothy Meaney, president of the BLC and director of the Tisch Library at Tufts University, joining Project ReShare offers the BLC the opportunity to magnify its impact by collaborating with other libraries to collectively shape the future of both CDL and resource sharing more broadly. “Our goals for resource sharing align with those of other libraries and consortia,” said Meaney. “Through Project ReShare we see the chance to contribute our expertise and leadership in this space, for the long-term benefit of libraries.”

The BLC’s CDL Steering Committee, which is guiding the consortium’s implementation of CDL, is prepared to work directly with Project ReShare community members and developers on the development of CDL functionality. As a result of the work that the BLC has done thus far, coupled with its previous discussions with other Project ReShare members and staff from Index Data, the consortium has a great deal of expertise and vision for CDL, and how this can manifest in practical, impactful solutions for libraries and consortia.

Tim McGeary, chair of the Project ReShare Steering Committee, praised BLC’s investment in Project ReShare. “We recognize that such a large financial commitment isn’t possible for everyone, but we hope BLC’s investment will serve as a model for other potential members,” McGeary noted. “Interest in Project ReShare is increasing rapidly, and the financial investments are crucial to our being able to meet the development expectations of the community.”

The decision to join Project ReShare was approved unanimously by the BLC Board of Directors.

About Project ReShare

The ReShare Community is a group of libraries, consortia, information organizations and developers, with both commercial and non-commercial interests, who came together in 2018 to create Project ReShare – a new and open approach to library resource sharing. The ReShare Community has a bold vision for building a user-centered, app-based, community-owned resource sharing platform for libraries to set a new standard for how we connect library patrons to the resources and information they require.

For more information, contact info@projectreshare.org.

To receive email updates from Project ReShare, please sign up for the Project ReShare news list at https://projectreshare.org/contact.

About the Boston Library Consortium

Founded in 1970, the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) is an academic library consortium serving public and private universities, liberal arts colleges, state and special research libraries in the northeastern United States. The BLC members collaborate to deliver innovative and cost-effective sharing of print and digital content, professional development initiatives, and projects across a wide range of library practice areas. For more information, visit blc.org.

Questions about ReShare? Our documentation wiki is here to help!

While many library staffers are already using ReShare everyday, they may not know that the project has been working to create a comprehensive documentation hub.

The ReShare documentation wiki features detailed descriptions of core software features, such as request states, processing actions, and external integrations. It also includes workflow guides designed by librarians that bring together groups of functions commonly used together.

You can find a link to the documentation wiki at https://projectreshare.org or access it directly at https://openlibraryenvironment.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/PR.

In the coming months, ReShare will continue to expand this documentation with the help of the project community. If you are interested in helping to support the documentation effort, please contact us at info@projectreshare.org.

Three New Members Join Project ReShare Steering Committee

The Project ReShare Steering Committee welcomes its three newest members after our latest round of elections for at-large members. The newly elected members are Kristen Calvert (Western Carolina University), Pamela Jones (ConnectNY), and Zheng Ye (Lan) Yang (Texas A&M).

Kristen Calvert is currently the Department Head for Discovery and Technology Services at Western Carolina University. For the past 10 years, Kristen has worked with e-resources, collections, technology, and resource sharing. Kristen has been an active member of the UNC Shared ILS task force and serve on the Consortium of Shared UNC Print steering committee. As the past Content Organization and Management Department Head, Kristen was responsible for WCU’s ILL unit and migrated WCU from ILLiad to Tipasa in 2018. Kristen’s new responsibilities include Project Management for technology projects, including our migration to a new content management system for digital collections.

Pamela Jones is the Executive Director of ConnectNY, a consortium of independent academic institutions in New York State. Pam has over 37 years of experience in public, academic, and special libraries in addition to her work with ConnectNY. Pam currently serves on the CC-PLUS Steering Committee, the Partnership for Shared Book Collections Operations Committee, the Empire Library Delivery Advisory Committee, and the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative Advisory Committee. She is an experienced editor, writer, presenter, communicator, and consultant, as well as an avid gardener.

Zheng Ye (Lan) Yang is the Director of Document Delivery Services at Texas A&M University Libraries. She was responsible for planning and implementing the popular Get It service, and has developed innovative and responsive services for faculty and students that have become models for other institutions worldwide. Because of her pioneering work, she is frequently consulted by peer institutions and invited to give presentations across the nation about interlibrary loan/document delivery services. As the interim Associate Dean for Document Delivery/Interlibrary Services, Collection Development, Electronic Resources, Acquisition, Cataloging, and Stacks Maintenance, she worked with collections and technical services to coordinate alignment of library services with current campus research and teaching needs. She is an advocate for the resource evaluation, delivery and discovery processes that connect the TAMU community members to information resources.

ReShare Implementation: An Interview with Pam Jones, Executive Director at ConnectNY

ConnectNY implemented ReShare Returnables in September 2021. Jon Jeffryes, Interim Associate Dean at Grand Valley State University and ReShare Communication Team member, talked with ConnectNY Executive Director Pam Jones about the implementation.

Project ReShare: When did ConnectNY go live with ReShare Returnables?
Pam Jones: September 1. It’s been a little over two weeks.

PR: What features of ReShare are most exciting for ConnectNY?
PJ: The fact that it’s open source and we can have some agency in the development of it going forward. That was huge for us.

PR: What are you hearing from member libraries about ReShare?
PJ: So far, so good. Of course, any time you do implementation you can test all you want in a testing environment and when you go to production it’s always different. Originally, we were going to implement and go live in mid-August but when PALCI [Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration & Innovation] went live the week before us, there were issues that came out. So, we put ours off for two weeks while those bugs were fixed and those issues were addressed. Then when we went live.

The first week or so, there were a lot of messages about “This isn’t working,” and “I don’t know how to do that.” We got through those and it’s — knock on wood – it’s calmed down this week. But I just saw two emails asking questions, so we’ll see. But we’re getting through it and it seems to be working. Patrons are using it. That’s the bottom line, that that’s working.

PR: What has your experience been like leading up to your implementation?
PJ: Well we were on INN-Reach, Innovative’s product, for the last twenty years, and we needed to exit that, so we did that. We talked with Index Data, the board approved moving to ReShare in late 2020, and I got contracts signed in late December/early January. Then we started the implementation process with Index Data while we were exiting from INN-Reach. So, it was a little hairy for a while, exiting one product and starting to implement another. There is a process to exiting INN-Reach; we wound down circulation and exited. That went very smoothly.

In the implementation, the biggest hurdle for us, was our Sierra and Millennium libraries did not have the NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP) API added, so they all decided to do implement that. You don’t have to, but it does make things work with your system. It took us a while but the Director of Support Services at Innovative helped us get all of NCIP APIs up and running. That was probably our biggest hurdle, getting all the NCIP set up.

And then getting SSO set up for everybody took a bit of work for the Index Data staff. At most institutions you have to work with your IT department and the library, and in our case, Index Data. They did it and we’re all up and running. We have resolved all but one NCIP issue, which actually had been resolved and now it’s not working again. So, we’re working on that one between Innovative and Index Data and it will get resolved. We’ll figure it out. “It’s brand new,” that’s what I tell everybody. It’s not going to be perfect and we will figure it out.

PR: Other than the NCIP APIs were there any other things you had to deal with around working with different libraries?
PJ: What was nice for us was that we use Basecamp for all of our committees and projects. So, I set up a Basecamp for the systems folks and then I set one up for, what we call the trainers – your practitioners, front line folks. When we were getting everything set up the implementers, the systems Basecamp was super busy. We have staff from Index Data on the Basecamp projects and when there were questions, they helped answer them. We’re going to move away from that pretty soon, but for implementing it worked. There were a lot questions and it was nice because my crew — there’s a lot who are on Alma, and some on Sierra, there’s one on Millennium, there’s one WMS — the Sierra folks would ping and help each other. The same with the ALMA users. They were sharing their settings and knowledge and we got everything figured out. The nice thing is that it actually does work with all the different systems. It gives everybody the same experience.

PR: What advice do you have for others considering ReShare?
PJ: Plan your support for after implementation. Talk to your service provider if you’re not going to be your own host and make sure that you’re able to handle it. Know that it is different and there are going to be a lot more issues maybe than you’re used to. We increased the hours for our members service coordinator recently just to help us going forward with that, because we’re just two part-time people, we’re a small shop.

News Release — GALILEO Initiative Joins Project ReShare

September 21, 2021

The inclusion of GALILEO as a new member of Project ReShare dramatically increases the number of institutions affiliated with the project. GALILEO, Georgia’s virtual library, is a community of more than 2,000 institutions, including colleges, school districts, and public libraries. . Project ReShare is pleased to welcome GALILEO to the rapidly growing ReShare community. Current ReShare membership is available on the Project ReShare web site. Information about GALILEO, its programs, and membership is available at https://about.galileo.usg.edu.

An initiative of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia (USG), GALILEO offers many programs to its community, including GALILEO Search, Affordable Learning Georgia, the Digital Library of Georgia, and GALILEO Interconnected Libraries (GIL). “We’re pleased to begin working with ReShare,” remarked Lucy Harrision, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Library Services and Executive Director of GALILEO. “While we don’t yet have a specific timeline for implementation, we’re very optimistic about the prospect of an open source resource sharing application. We look forward to working with ReShare leadership to develop a roadmap and expand our portfolio of services to the GALILEO community.”

In addition to paying an initial membership fee, GALILEO will be offering in-kind support by way of accessibility audits and testing by staff who have received training from the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation at Georgia Tech. Other in-kind offerings include provision of user stories for multi-type consortia as well as consultation on governance models. As a roadmap and timeline for adoption becomes clearer, GALILEO hopes to provide additional support and increase its investment further.

“The ReShare leadership has already benefited from our initial conversations with GALILEO about how they might contribute to and benefit from participation in the project,” said Tim McGeary, Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategies and Technology at Duke University Libraries and chair of the Project ReShare Steering Committee. “We look forward to integrating the GALILEO team into the ReShare community.”

The ReShare Community recently celebrated an important milestone with the launch of ReShare Returnables by two long-standing consortial members, PALCI and ConnectNY.

Background

For more information, contact info@projectreshare.org.

To receive email updates from Project ReShare, please sign up for the Project ReShare news list at https://projectreshare.org/contact.

News Release — ConnectNY Launches ReShare Returnables

ConnectNY, a consortium of independent academic institutions in New York State, launched ReShare Returnables on September 1, 2021. ConnectNY follows closely on the heels of the PALCI consortium, which implemented ReShare Returnables in August.

The Board of Directors of ConnectNY was looking for a different product to support resource sharing when ConnectNY joined the ReShare community in 2019. Pamela Jones, ConnectNY’s Executive Director, remarked, “We are excited and proud to have implemented ReShare already. Our consortium is small, but our membership is willing to take risks to improve services and programs. Choosing to work with Index Data made the move to ReShare possible for us.”

Jones also commented on the appeal of supporting an open source project like ReShare. “It is exciting to be a part of an open source community where our ConnectNY members have a say in the ongoing development of a product.”

Tim McGeary, chair of the Project Reshare Steering Committee, congratulated ConnectNY on its successful launch. “The ConnectNY team worked closely with Index Data to ensure a smooth transition to Project ReShare,” McGeary said. “On behalf of the Steering Committee, I’d like to express my congratulations and gratitude to ConnectNY for being a pioneering implementer of ReShare Returnables.”

ReShare Returnables supports interlibrary loan of physical materials between members of a consortium. The software, built using the open source FOLIO platform, uses an app-based approach to resource sharing workflows. Index Data and Knowledge Integration are lead developers on the project, with numerous members of the ReShare community also contributing to development. The apps include a member directory, queues to manage requesting and supplying workflows, and a bulk update tool. A shared inventory app allows ReShare libraries to pool their bibliographic metadata for discovery and fulfillment purposes.

More information about the Returnables product and a video demonstration can be found at https://projectreshare.org/products/product-demo.

Background

For more information, contact info@projectreshare.org.

To receive email updates from Project ReShare, please sign up for the Project ReShare news list at https://projectreshare.org/contact.

###

Media Contact

Lisa Croucher
Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN): trln.org, Executive Director
Project ReShare: projectreshare.org, Communication Team, Chair
info@projectreshare.org

News Release — ReShare Returnables Launched by PALCI

On August 12, 2021, the ReShare Returnables software went into full production, actively supporting the resource sharing needs of the PALCI consortium, including more than 50 diverse academic libraries located in PA, NY, NJ, and WV. This inaugural launch of ReShare Returnables marks almost exactly three years since a group of visionary open source software developers and consortial leaders met at Swarthmore College near Philadelphia, PA to chart the path of this innovative and inspirational project.

“We are thrilled to be the first library consortium to launch what is now the world’s first community-owned open source consortial borrowing system. ReShare will transform our ability to share our libraries’ collections and innovate in ways that will serve our patrons for years to come,” says PALCI Executive Director Jill Morris.

Morris has been a strong advocate for and leader of Project ReShare since its inception, having served as the inaugural chair of the Project ReShare Steering Committee.

“It’s incredibly rewarding to see the hard work of so many people over the past three years coming to fruition. It’s been a great honor to participate in this project with so many of my colleagues, and I’m proud of what it represents, especially as it offers a sustainable model for successful open source software collaborations across sectors and organizations.”

ReShare Returnables is the first production software to come out of the open source, collaborative community. The Returnables software represents the first step in ReShare’s goal of creating a consortial resource sharing system that will enable sharing of the collective collection in all formats, regardless of integrated library system, and empowering library-driven and user centered workflows.

In an average year, PALCI libraries borrow and lend more than 150,000 physical items from their collections to each other through PALCI’s well-regarded EZBorrow consortial borrowing program. EZBorrow, powered by the ReShare software, allows patrons to send borrowing requests to lending libraries automatically without involving library staff, saving staff time and giving patrons efficient, world-class access to more than 10 million unique items across the consortium’s shared collections.

ReShare Returnables supports interlibrary loan of physical materials between members of a consortium. The software, built using the open source FOLIO platform, uses an app-based approach to resource sharing workflows. The apps include a member directory, queues to manage requesting and supplying workflows, and a bulk update tool. A shared inventory app allows ReShare libraries to pool their bibliographic metadata for discovery and fulfillment purposes.

“ReShare is the result of a deep, open collaboration between a group of libraries, consortia, and companies, based on the notion that infrastructure should be owned by communities, not by individual organizations,” said Lynn Bailey, Chief Executive Officer of Index Data, the first certified service provider for Project ReShare. “This project has inspired and motivated us at Index Data in ways we could not have imagined, and it’s been a privilege to be part of it. We’ve developed a complete set of services that enable consortia and other resource sharing groups to offer ReShare to their membership in a reliable, cost-effective way. Today we celebrate the PALCI launch and the hard work of our team and partners on this momentous occasion!”

ConnectNY, a consortium of independent academic institutions in New York State, will launch ReShare Returnables later this month.

More information about the Returnables product and a video demonstration can be found at https://projectreshare.org/products/product-demo.

Background

For more information, contact info@projectreshare.org.

To receive email updates from Project ReShare, please sign up for the Project ReShare news list at https://projectreshare.org/contact.

# # #

Media Contact

Lisa Croucher
Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN): trln.org, Executive Director
Project ReShare: projectreshare.org, Communication Team, Chair
info@projectreshare.org