RESOURCE SHARING

Title of the Article: OhioLINK: a US resource sharing facility - issues and developments
Author: Sanville, Tom
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited
URL: www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-1615.htm

Abstract :

    This article traces the development of OhioLINK - a world famous US resource sharing facility -and the issues it confronts as well as its responses. Based on the principle that information use breeds more information use, OhioLINK enhances its users' educational activities through access to and use of the documents and information resources which it provides. A set of priorities and initiatives is given for consideration.

Three things I learned from my Reading Assignment: 

1.  No matter how big and famous a library consortium is such as the OhioLINK, it has its own share of challenges and issues that it must face and respond to. Library budget or funding may be given as one of the challenges.

2. The success of OhioLINK in the area of electronic document delivery depends on some strategic perspectives and objectives. Among the objectives, foremost is that more information must be delivered per dollar spent but this must be done at more sustainable rates over time given the realities of limited library funding increases. A more robust collection of accessible print and electronic must be made available across the consortium. The economic principle being utilized here is that there is a fundamental need to lower the per-unit cost of information bought and used. Furthemore, there is also a need to affordably meet the simultaneous goals of expanding short-term access without sacrificing preservation.

3. There are sets of priorities and initiatives that must be considered in order to resolve the issues and challenges affecting not only OhioLINK but other library consortia as well. Some of these priorities and initiatives are:

• utilization of a user-based research to improve electronic information delivery systems and connect users to needed information effectively
• ability to search as many OhioLINK and library resources as possible at one time
• maximize access to the intellectual resources of the member institutions and libraries as well as those freely available on the web

Implications of the new things I learned to my work/to me as a person:

    Library consortium or library resource sharing per se provides benefits to those participating libraries who  are lacking in terms of collections of documents in whatever formats (print and non-print). But the question in my mind is that in the Philippine setting, are the participating libraries especially those who have a robust collection of materials really share what they have or are they just choosing from their collections what  they just want to share. I am not against library consortium but the issue of the participating libraries being selective   in the choice of what type of collections to share should be resolved first.

    In this digital age, electronic document delivery seems to be the trend as practiced in the United States through OhioLINK for example. Although  academic libraries in the Philippines are slowly becoming digitally operational in their resource sharing practices, still the perennial problem of library budget deficit or funding deficit  remains. The Philippine academic libraries have much to learn from priorities and initiatives set by the OhioLINK.