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.
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**
[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
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.
On November 15, Project ReShare held a Community Meeting that gave members the opportunity to focus on community-building and sustainability. Attendees had the opportunity to connect with each other in small breakout rooms to discuss the state of the Project and to brainstorm how to help ensure the sustainability of the Project for the future. Members were encouraged to reflect on opportunities and challenges and think about how to increase participation and welcome new members to the community.
In the breakout rooms, members shared that they particularly value the community-focus of Project ReShare and appreciate how ReShare Returnables is able to interoperate with a wide variety of other systems. There was an appreciation for the diversity in library types and sizes involved, and it was noted that there are lots of opportunities for future development as well as enhancements to existing functionality.
The participants also discussed how to ensure the financial and community sustainability of Project ReShare. Attendees provided input on financial and development contributions of members and how to onboard new members with a focus on integrating new and existing voices into the organizational structure of Project ReShare.
PALCI went live with ReShare Returnables in August 2021. Clara Fehrenbach, Document Delivery Services Librarian at the University of Chicago and ReShare Communication Team member, interviewed PALCI Executive Director Jill Morris about the implementation.
Project ReShare: When did PALCI go live with ReShare Returnables?
Jill Morris: PALCI went live with ReShare powering its well-known EZBorrow consortial interlibrary loan service on August 12th, 2021. Within just a few short days, we were already seeing requests being generated through our patron search/browse interface (the shared VuFind ReShare discovery layer) and books being delivered to borrowing PALCI institutions. The first patron-initiated ReShare book request to make its way into the hands of a library patron originated at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. The item was supplied and delivered by Drexel University in Philadelphia in less than 48 hours. The system correctly identified Drexel University as a supplier for the item, and the staff at Drexel processed the request in ReShare, getting the book to the user even more quickly than most Amazon Prime purchases.
PR: What features of ReShare are most exciting for PALCI?
JM: From the consortium office perspective, we’re thrilled to have the means to support library configurations with a central directory and other staff-facing tools that support easy problem solving and troubleshooting. We can see what’s happening with each request from the moment the patron clicks a button, and while it’s hidden from patron-view, staff can use that information to ensure the system is working properly behind the scenes. We also love the new shared index that was developed as a part of this system to support the sharing of collections. At a glance, we can search and understand what’s held collectively within the PALCI community.
PR: What are you hearing from member libraries about ReShare?
JM: Library staff are telling us that they like the opportunity to communicate back and forth with each other, right at the point of need. A message feature allows you to connect with the individual working on a specific request without the need for separate email chains and reference back to other systems. We’re also hearing that many faculty users enjoy the discovery interface where they can browse for and filter searches to identify the materials they’re seeking at our 50+ participating EZBorrow libraries.
PR: What has your experience been like leading up to your implementation?
JM: PALCI decided to join the ReShare community prior to it having the name ReShare. For two years prior to ReShare’s official start, a working group within PALCI made up of resource sharing experts, library developers, systems staff, and consortial leadership had put a great deal of effort into identifying and defining a preferred future for next generation resource sharing. In early 2017, it was determined that threats of market consolidation were increasing, and that there was no existing system that would meet the needs of the future defined by that group, so we began seeking out partners to create solutions. The group agreed that it was essential for our choice to include an investment in open and interoperable library infrastructure so as not to repeat the same issues of the past, and so that the end result would remain under the control of the community that developed it. After making our initial contribution to help co-fund the UX design and development work, the decision to implement ReShare was an easy one. We had played a role in designing the system’s requirements, and ReShare represented the potential for innovation and the future our community had defined several years earlier.
The implementation of the system itself was mostly front-loaded with steps to ensure we could properly map the holdings of each library’s collections into our shared index so they could act as suppliers in the system. Setting up the cloud-based tenants for each library was a relatively straightforward process. Our service provider, Index Data, hosts and maintains the implementation. Each library received its own distinct URL and login to set up its staff users. Once set-up, libraries were able to configure their institution’s pickup locations and prioritize various locations and branches as suppliers. The ReShare interface gives our consortium staff tools to help configure the settings for each library, and because most of our libraries already had standard NCIP functionality in place (a set of protocols that allows a central system to talk to disparate ILS systems), we were primarily working through an iterative process of configuration and testing. We have at least 12 different types of ILS systems in use by PALCI libraries, plus a variety of discovery tools. ReShare’s use of standards, like NCIP, and open APIs, allowed us to connect to each ILS seamlessly, and in the future, the system will be capable of discovery integrations with local systems too.
We were determined to go live with our implementation just prior to the start of the Fall semester to ensure we’d have enough staff back in the office. The launch also coincided with many staff returning to on-site work after more than a year of COVID-related disruptions. We also waited to make sure that ReShare integrations with other tools, like ILLiad, were well on their way to completion. Our biggest hurdle was the sheer volume of institutions we needed to connect, and the many system configuration combinations those libraries represented.The implementation was fast and furious as we approached our target date — PALCI was the very first implementer to go live, and as we went along, we identified some configuration issues that needed resolution prior to implementation. Fortunately, the ReShare development team delivered on solutions each time we encountered a problem, and none of the issues prevented us from using the system. We managed the implementation largely in cohorts, and relied on our community to help support each other in developing system documentation and user guides that will benefit other consortia in future. Today, we have 53 libraries actively using ReShare, and we expect to bring on 15-20 additional libraries in the next 6-12 months.
PR: What advice do you have for others considering ReShare?
JM: With most proprietary platforms, libraries have to expect that commercial business interests will ultimately win out in all product roadmap decisions, driving further vertical vendor integrations and less choice in the marketplace overall. After all, commercial entities offering proprietary solutions are set-up to operate for profit, whether or not the solutions that drive that profit are actually benefiting users of the service to the fullest extent desired by consumers. ReShare represents an important opportunity to break that cycle and give libraries a real voice in the process. It’s a chance for libraries to co-invest in and shape the future of sharing collections by providing choice and potential for innovation — keeping libraries’ and patrons’ needs front and center through a shared vision and governance model. ReShare is a brand new software – and there are some growing pains that come with that choice. The software is not yet as mature as others out there on the market. Yet the system is breaking new ground with its implementation of ISO18626 — the newest ILL standards, and it’s laying a foundation for greater system interoperability in the future. It’s an investment that all libraries should be thinking hard about making when faced with the choice. Along those same lines, I think perhaps ReShare’s most important asset is its community. The team of developers from Index Data and Knowledge Integration together in partnership with a group of consortia and individual libraries is unlike most library community projects in that we have a deep wealth of expertise, transparency, shared interests and alignment around vision.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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Media Contact
Lisa Croucher
Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN): trln.org, Executive Director
Project ReShare: projectreshare.org, Communication Team, Chair
info@projectreshare.org
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
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.
# # #
Media Contact
Lisa Croucher
Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN): trln.org, Executive Director
Project ReShare: projectreshare.org, Communication Team, Chair
info@projectreshare.org
May 17, 2021
Project ReShare is pleased to welcome Minitex and the Ann Arbor District Library to the ReShare community. Current ReShare membership is available on the Project ReShare web site.
Minitex is a state-funded library organization based at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities that provides resource sharing and delivery to libraries of all types in Minnesota – school media centers, public and academic libraries, state agency and health science libraries.
Gerri Moeller, Associate Director for Resource Sharing and Delivery, explained the Minitex process for evaluating ReShare and deciding to apply for membership. “For the past few months, we have been meeting with representatives from Project ReShare, reviewing the documentation, discussing our needs for a future resource sharing system, and viewing demonstrations of the current state of the project,” Moeller said. “We’re really intrigued with the possibilities, and excited to become a member of this project.”
The Minitex MNLINK service allows any patron in the state to search a Minnesota instance of WorldCat, or extend that service out to the full WorldCat catalog, then directly place an unmediated request. Items from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities are filled, free of charge, by Minitex staff for any resident of the state. In 2020, Minitex delivered 732,000 items, referred almost 400,000 requests, and facilitated over 250,000 direct patron requests. Minitex provides many other services to libraries and cultural heritage institutions in Minnesota, including a robust statewide database, an online reference service, a statewide ebook collection, cooperative purchasing services, a statewide historical digitized collection, and a high-density storage facility. The organization is just wrapping up its four-year involvement in a project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to work with SimplyE.
Among the Minitex contributions to Project ReShare are three years of financial support, participation on Project ReShare committees and teams, and staff expertise, especially in integration and deployment of SimplyE.
The Ann Arbor District Library (AADL) serves approximately 160,000 residents in the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan and other parts of Washtenaw County. Its five locations are staffed by about 200 employees, including eight staff members in the information technology department.
AADL has a long-standing commitment to information technology and open source software. It administers its own Evergreen instance and a “homegrown” catalog and integration built on Drupal and Elasticsearch. “AADL is deeply committed to open source and collaboratively developed software,” noted Eli Neiburger, Deputy Director of AADL. “We’re interested in open source alternatives to our current patron-initiated interload system. We want to support efforts to develop an open platform.”
AADL will be providing three years of financial support to the project.
Background
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.
