Iowa State University Library
FY2014 External Library Review
Question V. Organization and Collaboration. E. External Collaborations
Question V. E. External Collaborations
A. External Collaborations. Are the breadth, depth, and nature of our collaborative relationships
appropriate for an ARL research library in today’s environment? This includes within the
university and Board of Regents State of Iowa:
1. Do they effectively leverage cost-effective activities and extend the reach of existing resources
and services?
2. Are there missing collaborative relationships given the missions of the University and Library?
3. How might we strengthen or extend our collaborative relationships - particularly given our
university land-grant mission?
Supporting Information
Partnerships are critical to the Library’s success. The Library participates in numerous external
collaborations with a variety of partners and memberships (e.g., campus groups and offices, Iowa Regent
libraries, the State Library of Iowa, Greater Western Library Alliance, Association for Research Libraries,
HathiTrust, Western Regional Storage Trust (WEST), SCOAP3, SPARC, OCLC Research Library Partnership,
Center for Research Libraries, RAPID ILL, etc.); and our many business partners (e.g., EBSCO, bepress,
springshare, Baker and Taylor/YBP Library Services, and Iowa Prison Industries). The following are
examples of a broad range of collaborations
A. Campus Collaborations
1. The ISU Vice President for Research and Economic Development partnered with the library on
joint financial support for the Digital Repository and also research collaboration resulted, in
conjunction with the ISU Foundation, in ISU Library-led grant workshops
2. The Office of the Provost on budget support and guidance
3. Colleges of Design and Veterinary Medicine (to provide support for our Design Reading Room
and Veterinary and Medical Library)
4. Instructional Collaborations (working with offices that help ensure student success –
Admissions, Honors Program, Academic Success Center, etc. The list is potentially endless.)
5. Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (particularly course management software and
class evaluation tools used for Lib160 and the newly announced Blended Learning Hub)
6. Facilities, Planning and Management collaborated on a vast number of small and large
renovation projects, disasters and emergencies (including a roof leak in the Special Collections
Department and library staff helped salvage hundreds of FPM architectural drawings after the
2010 flood);
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B. State and National Collaborations
The Library participates in numerous external collaborations with a variety of partners and
memberships (e.g., the Iowa Regent libraries, the State Library of Iowa, Greater Western Library
Alliance, Association for Research Libraries (with AAU and APLU), HathiTrust, Western Regional
Storage Trust (WEST), SCOAP3, SPARC, OCLC Research Library Partnership, Center for Research
Libraries, RAPID ILL, etc.); and, our business partners (e.g., EBSCO, bepress, SpringShare, Baker and
Taylor/YBP Library Services, and Iowa Prison Industries). Some of the more prominent examples are
detailed below.
1. Iowa Regents Libraries
The three Regents libraries work collaboratively in a number of ways that involve a variety of librarians
and staff. Regent libraries have a joint commercial library binding contract. The heads of the libraries
(University of Northern Iowa, University of Iowa and Iowa State University) formally comprise the
membership of the Committee on Library Cooperation, State Board of Regents of Iowa. The State
Librarian typically attends the meetings to promote broader statewide library cooperation. The
Committee on Library Cooperation (CLC) has long fostered support and cooperation among our three
institutional libraries through active resource sharing, increased access to electronic journal
subscriptions through cooperative group licensing agreements, joint binding contracts, increased
efficiencies and services through shared expertise, and other programmatic and infrastructure
collaborations.
Several other groups and projects report to the CLC, including the Collection Management Council
(ICMC), the Interlibrary Loan Working Group, the Information Technology Working Group, Reference
and Instruction Task Force, and VOICE (Virtual Original Cataloging Environment). Recent issues of
importance involve the ICMC decision whether or not to extend the “Big Deal” contract with Elsevier
for its ScienceDirect “Freedom Collection. Internally, each institution examined cost and usage data.
Ultimately, ICMC decided to take advantage of a short-term renewal option available to us and
entered into a three-year contract with an annual inflation rate of 5%.
2. State Library of Iowa
a. State of Iowa Libraries Online (SILO). SILO is a statewide program created by a partnership
between the State Library of Iowa and the Iowa State University Library. It offers resource
sharing services, including the Iowa Locator and SILO Interlibrary Loan to all types of libraries
in Iowa. The Library provides infrastructure support for SILO. Approximately 600 libraries
across the state use SILO, as a resource database of their joint holdings and an interlibrary
loan system.
b. Iowa ILL Reimbursement Program. Iowa libraries participating in this program are
reimbursed by the State Library of Iowa for supplying interlibrary loan materials to other
libraries in the state.
c. Research Database Purchases. The Library participates through the State Library of Iowa’s
major state-wide consortial electronic full text database purchases. For example, EBSCO
Host’s Academic Search Premier. The State Library of Iowa costs shares with each public
university library. It also allowed us to purchase discounted access to Learning Express,
which provides career guidance, subject based vocational tests, test preparation (e.g. SAT,
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GRE, MCAT), and other vocational and testing guidance. The product is designed to meet
the needs of elementary school through college students.
d. Iowa Heritage Digital Collections. The ISU Library was one of the early partners in the
development of the IHDC. The software and server space is provided by the State Library.
Content is contributed by a number of museums, societies, and libraries.
3. Regional Distributed Print Repository (DPR)
The libraries of Iowa State University (ISU), the University of Iowa (UI) and the University of
Wisconsin-Madison (UW) contribute to DPR for cooperative management of selected print journal
archives across the three institutions. Three publishers—American Chemical Society (ACS), Annual
Reviews (AR), and the Institute of Physics (IOP) are covered by the program. The program grew
out of the work of the Inter-Institutional Task Force for Exploring a Cooperative Repository
for Print Journals with a goal to explore the potential for cooperative management of
selected science print journal archives across the three institutions with a view to make the
best possible use of limited storage space and conserve much-needed public space in
overcrowded facilities. The three Regents library heads accepted the final report (2-242010) and implemented the collaborative program.
4. National Initiatives and Programs
a. Agricultural Networked Information Collaborative (AgNIC): The ISU Library was one of 4
founding libraries to create AgNIC in partnership with the National Agricultural Library in
1995. It is “a voluntary alliance of members based on the concept of ‘centers of excellence.’
The member institutions are dedicated to enhancing collective information and services
among the members and their partners for all those seeking agricultural information over
the Internet.” Each member library contributes guides to resources in a particular subject
area(s), is required to offer some sort of Ask an Expert service, and attends the AgNIC
Annual Meeting as part of their membership. Members also contribute content to the
AgNIC database of resources and participate in discussions related to improving the website
and database, as well as spreading involvement among more land-grant institutions and
potentially partnering with eXtension. Projects have included pursuing grant funding via the
National Science Foundation and Fund for Rural America.
b. Technical Reports Archive and Image Library (TRAIL) “identifies, acquires, catalogs, digitizes
and provides unrestricted access to U.S. government agency technical reports issued
primarily prior to 1976.” It started as a project of the GWLA consortium and has since
moved under the umbrella of the CRL Global Resource Network. There are approximately
30 member institutions. The ISU Library currently contributes content for digitizing (as well
as ISU-published technical reports already in digital form) and librarian volunteers to assist
in TRAIL efforts via the Steering Committee.
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