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With a shared vision of increasing digital access to and preservation of federal government technical reports, a collaborative team of engineering and government document librarians developed the Technical Report Archive & Image Library for complex collaborations that includes both (1) shared management for physical collection and (2) shared management and production for digital conversion processes. The model described in this article supports achieving a shared vision, regardless of the number of participants, geographic location, or member assets and is accomplished through the recognition and use of community collaboration and through social capital and gift-culture principles. KEYWORDS collaboration, collection management, consortia, cooperation, digital collections, government documents, partnership DOI: 10.1080/01930821003634997

While availability and access to more recent technical report literature has greatly improved through electronic delivery, older technical report literature still remains elusive to users. The challenges posed by these collections are two-fold: 1) the diverse nature of distribution and collection building practices across institutions; and, 2) the variability in the selection and acquisition methods used, resulting in incomplete series, confusion in depository and non-depository status, lack of awareness and definition of a "complete collection," and a host of other inconsistencies. Through a national dialogue among academic librarians led by University of Arizona Libraries (UAL) beginning in 2005, common discoveries were made about the various barriers libraries were experiencing in managing and making accessible legacy technical report collections, and the urgent need to address these issues. The positive response to these dialogues and preliminary assessment results led to an extraordinary opportunity to resolve a difficult challenge in academic and special libraries. These problems created a strong case for establishing the Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) collectively maintained by the library community. The Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) aims to identify, digitize, archive, and provide persistent and unrestricted access to federal technical reports issued prior to 1975. TRAIL is a Greater Western Library Alliance initiative led by the University of Arizona in collaboration with the Center for Research Libraries. TRAIL is funded by the member institutions of the Greater Western Library Alliance with an estimated annual budget of $128,000. To date, TRAIL has scanned more than one million pages of technical reports issued by the US federal government agencies and has involved participation and contribution from more than twenty universities. This paper will describe TRAIL, including the need for its development, current structure, and future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]