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Describes the Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC), whose member universities share book collections, an online library system containing multiple electronic resources including a union catalog, an offsite book storage facility, and a separately staffed service organization. WRLC's organizational development, structure, governance, funding, member assessment formula, and program planning are discussed. (Author/LRW)

Libraries are working toward collaborative management and preservation of print journals, newspapers, legal materials, and government documents; they must also establish a similar concerted effort focused on print monographs. Monographs present complex challenges at a time when libraries want to ensure the preservation of the print record but have increasing incentives to divest of older, less used print materials and take advantage of the affordances of electronic text. With LYRASIS as lead organization, planning partners California Digital Library (CDL), Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), and Center for Research Libraries (CRL)were awarded a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to conduct a workshop titled 'Developing a North-American Strategy to Preserve & Manage Print Collections of Monographs.' Workshop participants discussed the challenges and issues involved in collaborative monograph preservation and formulated an agenda of research and demonstration projects to test elements of a strategy., A 2009 issue of Collaborative Librarianship (Volume 1, Number 3) carried a 'From the Field' report by Robert H. Kieft and Bernard F. Reilly entitled 'Regional and National Cooperation on [...]

Library consortia can be organized according to a variety of models ranging from loosely affiliated 'buying clubs' to tightly integrated virtual or actual organizations. One of the most closely integrated […]