Successful Collaborations

Success Stories

• SAVELIBRARIES is a new website where you can find information on how communities are helping their own libraries survive during the current recession. There's news about state library systems and municipal and local libraries, because as the website states: "When one library is in trouble, ALL libraries are in trouble." Participation is requested by creators Lori Reed and Heather Braum, please check in at SAVELIBRARIES and let us know what efforts are helping to save YOUR library. Wherever possible, tag your entries savelibraries and #savelibraries on twitter.
• EPICis the national e-licensing initiative in New Zealand that makes available a package of electronic resources to all New Zealanders through the consortium member libraries. 190+ New Zealand libraries have committed to EPIC to date, and the Ministry of Education has funded access for all New Zealand schools until March 2007. As a result of this significant level of collaboration EPIC has provided unprecedented access to electronic resources for New Zealanders.
• PictureAustralia
• Information Australia was a pilot project established by the National Library of Australia. It involved the National Library working with five public libraries from around Australia. The project ran from October 2003 to June 2005. InformationAustralia was a web-based portal aimed at increasing access to resources held in Australian libraries and cultural institutions. The pilot project provided valuable information for the development of the new Libraries Australia service. Several conference papers explain the project:

• A portal for the people: National Library & your local public library = new access paradigm (PDF File - 266KB). From VALA 2004.
• Evaluating the public library portal (PDF File - 136KB). From Information Online 2005.
• ANTS: ANimated Tutorial Sharing project by COPPUL This project was designed to enable librarians to share in the development of point-of-need animated tutorials for a multitude of e-products. The project makes use of new Collaborative Information Technology (CIT) via an Open Source Institutional Repository (DSpace), a Wiki, RSS Feeds and Web Pages. This enables participants to (1) identify tutorials for development and (2) keep others up to date on their work. Initially only COPPUL librarians could add content to the Repository; but as of October 2006, any librarian can add content as well as download open source tutorials. It should also be noted that as its list of e-resources for tutorial development is on a Wiki, the list is considered to be a starting point for development. Anyone can add new e-products to the list of tutorials for development. Similarly, other types of library tutorials are welcome. One need only indicate that it exsists on the wiki and ensure that the source code for the tutorial is uploaded into DSpace.
• Collaboration to host national traveling exhibit

Tips on Developing Collaborative Relationships With Other Organizations

I work at a K-3 school library and I love working with the public library on different things. The public library held two luncheons this summer to get a nice relationship built between the local schools and themselves. We are now having a youth librarian coming to work with each of the grades on specific units that they are doing in the classroom. We also have planned a walking trip with another class to go visit the library. And another project we are collaborating on is an author visit to go to each of the schools throughout the week, and then on the last day have an evening program at the public library to get the whole community involved.

Blogs/Websites to Watch

Bringing Health Information to the Community http://nnlm.gov/bhic/ This blog gathers together health information of value to community based organizations working toward the elimination of health disparities for people of color as well as for people living in inner cities. Categories include Minority Health Concerns, Websites, Scholarships and Grants, Public Library, Rural Health, Public Health, Articles, Environmental Health, Conferences and more. The National Network of Libraries of Medicine - MidContinetal Region http://www.nnlm.gov/mcr/ sponsors this blog, and the main writer is Siobhan Champ-Blackwell, Community Outreach Liaison. Additional writers from four other NN/LM libraries also post content to the BHIC blog.

Specific Blog Posts/Articles to Check Out

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