Draft Vision, Mission, and Values, for Community Review

The ReShare Steering Committee has drafted vison, mission, and values statements for Community review. We invite feedback on these provisional statements through Friday, October 20, 2023, via this form.

Below are the drafts for review by the ReShare Community.

VISION

To serve as libraries’ competitive advantage in developing the most compelling innovation and agency in support of collections and resource sharing, while maintaining an inclusive and sustainable ecosystem that is fully accountable to its community of co-investors.

MISSION

To set the standard for how libraries collaborate, partner, share resources and connect patrons to the information they require by developing user-centered, standards-based, community-driven, and community-owned library resource sharing technologies and tools.

VALUES

Details of each of the five values listed below, including its definition and how it will be upheld and promoted, are available at this values overview document.

  1. Trust
  2. Community Ownership
  3. Openness and Transparency
  4. Sustainability
  5. Impact through Innovation

Community Meeting on Thursday, September 14, 2023

ReShare Community members are invited to the Community Meeting on Thursday, September 14, 2023, 12:00-1:30 EST. The Steering Committee will be sharing important information about the project, including membership updates, planned implementations, finances, and proposed refinements of our foundational vision. Register for the meeting via this Zoom registration link.   

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:

  1. 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;
  2. 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:

  1. 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.

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

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.

Returnables 1.2 demo, recording, and other resources from May 26 community meeting

The May 26, 2021 Project ReShare community meeting, which was open to the public, included a project update by Tim McGeary (Project ReShare Steering Committee chair), a demonstration of ReShare Returnables 1.2 and an overview of the roadmap by Kristen Wilson (Index Data Project Manager/Business Analyst), and lightning talks by Sean Cwiek (MCLS), Adam Olsen and Joel Marchesoni (Western Carolina University), Matthew Reidsma (Grand Valley State University), and Blake Graham-Henderson (MOBIUS).

As a follow-up to that meeting, which was hosted on Zoom, the following resources are now available:

Project ReShare update and roadmap (slides)

ReShare Returnables 1.2 product demo (video 1)

ReShare Returnables discussion and lightning talks (video 2)

ReShare Returnables documentation (Confluence)

ReShare Returnables tools for local testing (GitHub)