Community

News Release: MNLINK Resource Sharing Service, Powered by ReShare, Now Available for Minnesota Libraries

Project ReShare is pleased to announce that the MNLINK resource-sharing service has successfully transitioned to the ReShare platform. This change makes it easy for libraries in Minnesota to discover and share library resources. The new MNLINK, powered by ReShare and VuFind®, and hosted by Index Data, allows users to easily access physical and digital materials across many public and academic libraries in Minnesota.

Gerri Moeller from Minitex celebrated the successful migration, led by Index Data, saying, “I’ve been through a few migrations in my time, and this one went about as smooth as it could go. The system scaled beautifully – I don’t think we’ve heard a whisper of a problem with response time. Overall, I couldn’t be more pleased.”

The migration to the ReShare platform sets MNLINK up for a successful future, poised to benefit from the significant development activities surrounding the software, including cross-consortial borrowing and various digital resource-sharing capabilities. The platform’s roadmap is governed by its community of members. Minitex has actively stepped into the community, joining an international group of consortia and libraries who work together to shape the future of collaborative infrastructure for libraries.

Looking ahead, Minitex remains committed to promoting collaboration and equitable access to knowledge across Minnesota. The partnership with Project ReShare and Index Data aligns with these aims and illustrates the power of community-owned technologies in enhancing library services.

This development marks the fifth installation of ReShare by Index Data, following successful rollouts with PALCI (2021), ConnectNY (2021), IPLC (2022), and TRLN (2023). The National Library of Australia has announced the implementation of ReShare as part of the national library infrastructure in 2025 in partnership with CAVAL and Index Data.

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About Minitex

Minitex is an information and resource sharing program of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education and the University of Minnesota Libraries, located on the campus of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Our mission is to strengthen libraries, cultural institutions, and the communities they serve. We connect libraries and individuals with information, ideas, and experiences to enrich lives and strengthen communities.

About Project ReShare

The ReShare Community is a group of libraries, consortia, information organizations, and developers 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.

About Index Data

For 30 years, Index Data has been building market-leading open-source software that libraries and service providers rely on. We are a founding member of Project ReShare, a community-owned open platform for resource sharing, and the original architects and developers of the FOLIO library management system. We are also a key stakeholder in the Library Data Platform, an open-source reporting and analytics platform. We specialize in development, systems integration, hosting and implementation services, and bibliographic metadata management. To learn more about Index Data, please visit www.indexdata.com.

September 2024 Community Meeting Recording Now Available

We’re excited to share that the recording of our open community meeting, held on September 19, 2024, is now available for viewing! If you missed the live event or would like to revisit the discussions, you can watch the recording below.

The recording is helpfully broken up into the topics covered, which includes implementer from MNLINK (using ReShare for non-returnables) and IPLC (ReShare/ILLiad integration), a demonstration of and update on ReShare Digital, and more.

National Library of Australia selects ReShare to support resource sharing for Trove partners

Project ReShare is excited to announce its first global implementation is planned with some friends from down under!

Earlier this month, the National Library of Australia announced its selection of ReShare to support resource sharing for Trove partners.

For more information, check out the National Library of Australia’s announcement.

a photograph of a globe with a red heart drawn around australia

Orbis Cascade Alliance Joins Project ReShare Community, Strengthening Library Resource Sharing Initiatives

The Orbis Cascade Alliance is proud to join Project ReShare as a Champion Consortium and contribute to Project ReShare’s goal of creating an open source, community-owned, library resource sharing platform.

**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**

ReShare welcomes newest member Orbis Cascade Alliance

[Portland, Oregon, May 7, 2024] – The Orbis Cascade Alliance is proud to join Project ReShare as a Champion Consortium and contribute to Project ReShare’s goal of creating an open source, community-owned, library resource sharing platform. The ReShare community’s emphasis on collaborative development of tools that meet the functional needs of both library workers and library users aligns with the Alliance’s values and vision for the future.

The Alliance’s robust resource sharing program, exemplified by its Summit resource sharing initiative and courier service, has long been instrumental in facilitating the seamless exchange of physical library materials across the Pacific Northwest. Now, with a strategic focus on digital resource sharing models, the Alliance is poised to leverage Project ReShare’s innovative solutions to enhance access to digital content.

“The Orbis Cascade Alliance is thrilled to join the Project ReShare community, which embodies our mission of pushing the boundaries of library collaboration,” said Isaac Gilman, Executive Director of the Alliance. “The Alliance’s ability to deliver on our commitment to advancing equity in higher education is dependent on the extent to which we make strategic choices about where we invest our time and financial resources. By investing in ReShare, we are shaping a future that will better allow us, and our members, to provide equitable access to library resources and services for the students, staff, and faculty we serve.”

In support of its consortium-level commitment to the Project ReShare community, the Alliance’s central staff and member library staff will engage directly with ReShare initiatives, building on a long history of working collectively and collaboratively across consortia and libraries to advance technology and workflows beneficial to the library community as a whole.

“We are excited to welcome the Orbis Cascade Alliance to the Project ReShare community,” said Charlie Barlow, Executive Director of the Boston Library Consortium and Co-Chair of the Project ReShare Steering Committee. “Their extensive experience and dedication to advancing library resource sharing will undoubtedly enrich our collaborative efforts and contribute to the continued success of our shared initiatives.”

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*About Orbis Cascade Alliance:*

The Orbis Cascade Alliance is a library consortium of 38 academic libraries in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, with members including community colleges, private colleges and universities, and public regional and research universities. In service of our mission to “create and deliver innovative, sustainable, and essential library programs and resources” that advance our member institutions, the Alliance runs a shared library management system and discovery interface; works on collective purchasing; facilitates access to unique and local collections; and coordinates resource sharing for our members. The Alliance also serves dozens of affiliate members across our region, further connecting government, special, public, and academic libraries in the Northwest through shared licensing, physical courier service, and archival collections discovery.

*About Project ReShare:*

Project ReShare is a dynamic community-driven initiative dedicated to empowering libraries and consortia worldwide through innovative, user-centered, and community-owned library technologies and tools. With a vision to serve as libraries’ competitive advantage in fostering innovation and agency in support of collections and resource sharing, Project ReShare maintains an inclusive and sustainable ecosystem that prioritizes accountability to its community of co-investors.

At the heart of Project ReShare’s mission is the commitment to set the standard for library collaboration, partnership, resource sharing, and patron connectivity. By developing standards-based, community-driven solutions, Project ReShare aims to revolutionize how libraries share, ensuring equitable access to information resources for all patrons.

For more information about Project ReShare and its community of co-investors, visit projectreshare.org.

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For media inquiries or further information, please contact:

Orbis Cascade Alliance

Isaac Gilman

Executive Director

igilman@orbiscascade.org

www.orbiscascade.org

Project ReShare

Charlie Barlow and Ginny Boyer

Co-Chairs, ReShare Steering Committee

info@projectreshare.org

Kurt Munson Reflects on Project ReShare

Kurt Munson, Head of Access Services at Northwestern University, has been involved with Project ReShare since its inception. He has served several important roles in the Project, including as a member of the Steering Committee and as Chair of the Product Management Team since 2018. He was instrumental in the visioning of what Project ReShare could become, and he announced last month that he is stepping down from his official roles in Project ReShare. We want to celebrate his contributions and learn from his experience by interviewing him for the Project ReShare news site.

Project ReShare: You’ve been involved with Project ReShare since the beginning. Can you talk a little about how it all began?

Kurt Munson: Sebastian (Hammer,Co-Founder and President of Index Data) and I had a chat at the Midwinter meeting of the American Library Association in Denver [in 2018]. We were concerned about contraction and consolidation in the ILL software marketplace leaving libraries with fewer and fewer choices as well as a concern that standards for interoperability were being ignored. We got a group together for a first meeting in August of that year and started fleshing out what a product could be and, more importantly, how to have a community of support around it.

Project ReShare: What has changed since those early days?

Kurt Munson: ReShare has forced “churn in the market,” as I call it. ISO 18626 is now on all roadmaps due, I think, to our early adoption of that standard for ReShare. We have a growing community of users and a strong base of people committed to the project who graciously give their time to share knowledge to develop better products.

Project ReShare: What are you most excited about for the future of ReShare?

Kurt Munson: Expansion both in functionalities and user base. The ability to build out a group of software functions to meet the needs of many different types of libraries as well as different groupings of libraries. More than anything else it’s the creativity of the community as it pushes the boundaries. ReShare has grown so much and my decision to step down is because the project is well past my ability to effectively support it with my knowledge and experience. In the words of Banksy- “When the time comes to leave, just walk away quietly and don’t make any fuss.”

In the end, I don’t know if Project ReShare benefited more from this experience or honestly that I did. It was a wonderful collaborative learning experience from which I have learned a great deal that I use daily.