The Plan: Executive Summary / Need, Importance, Urgency / Purpose & Philosophy / General / Future Development / Appendix / Proposal Process

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The principal purpose of the Illinois Cooperative Collection Management Program (CCMP) is to enrich and strengthen the collective information resources available to the customers of the consortium libraries and to the citizens of the State of Illinois. An overriding planning assumption is that the libraries will be able to attain this ambitious purpose as a consortium far more successfully than as individual organizations. Secondary objectives include making collections dollars go farther, reducing unnecessary duplication, and exploiting new resources (typically electronic) with limited budgets. But the plan will not be successful if it does not achieve its primary aim: a significant increase in the state's library resources.

Background: The Plan for Collaborative Collections Management is the product of a year-long (1993-94) planning effort which was initiated by the Cooperative Collection Mangement Coordinating Committee (CMCCC) and initially involved key personnel from the twenty-seven largest libraries in the state. The plan grew out of the awareness of these planners of the adverse economic conditions that jeopardize the ability of libraries in Illinois to serve its citizens. The technical infrastructure in the state and the Committee's previous record of cooperation form a solid basis for collaborative efforts. The Plan is dynamic and incorporates the needs of those academic libraries which become new members of the consortium. All member libraries develop collaborative collections projects for their mutual benefit and for the benefit of all citizens of Illinois.

Membership: Members of the Consortium are those academic libraries in the ILLINET community that sign the consortial agreement provided in Appendix III, plus the Chicago Public Library and the Illinois State Library. The number of libraries in the consortium may expand as new libraries sign the agreement to become fully participating members.

Governance: The Cooperative Collection Management Coordinating Committee (CCMCC) is the governing body responsible for developing and implementing the Illinois Cooperative Collection Management Program. The chief purpose of the CCMCC is to promote and enable resource-sharing among members of the consortium for the ultimate benefit of the citizens of Illinois. The CCMCC is responsible for coordinating collaborative projects on behalf of the Illinois academic and research library community and other constituents within the state, including the establishment of procedures for the allocation of funds to specific projects. The Committee is also responsible for informing the library community and other interested parties of Program initiatives, plans and projects, and for managing associated training, communication, and staff development efforts.

Process: At the core of the plan is a project proposal process, presented in detail elsewhere in this document. Member libraries will develop proposals for collaborative projects following consortial guidelines. Libraries involved in consortial projects are responsible for participating in planning, development, and initiation of projects as appropriate. Member libraries must also be willing to accept some financial responsibility for the long-term maintenance of the consortium, its programs and plans.

The Program has several controlling principles:

• Universal benefit. The activities and projects of the consortium must have demonstrable benefit to a broad constituency.

• Open physical access. Participating libraries must guarantee that their collections will be reasonably available to the primary constituents of all other consortium libraries.

• Contractual responsibility. Libraries participating in consortial projects will be expected to sign formal written agreements to which they commit their institutions.

• Local sufficiency. This plan is not meant to replace the need for locally sufficient collections and the resources to support them but to supplement local sufficiency by amplifying the resources available within the state.

• Selective participation; universal input. Though not all libraries in the consortium will participate actively in all projects, each will have an opportunity to respond to project ideas and influence consortial direction.

• Multiple funding modes. Though some centralized or external funding will be available for some projects, consortial libraries understand that they will be expected to provide funding from their own budgets for projects.

• Creative pilots. Planners opted deliberately not to develop a grand, fixed plan, but to encourage the development of pilot projects that directly address the needs of library customers in creative ways.