Presented at CONUL conference, May 2017, Athlone, Ireland

2. Delivering Our Vision
Christopher Pressler, University Librarian
Dublin City University

3. ‘It is a miserable thing to live in suspense;
it is the life of the spider’
Jonathan Swift

4. How we got here…
• Board planning days in 2014 and 2015
• Strategy Implementation Group formed @conulac15
• Strategy Implementation Group met twice at TCD
• Draft version to Board and Group Chairs Sep 2015
• Final version Board approved Dec 2015
• Published version to CONUL libraries Mar 2016
• Strategy Implementation Group met at DCU May 2016
• Strategy community launch @conulac16
• Strategy public launch RIA and NLI December 2016
• Strategy update on activity @conulac17

5. Activity to date
• Huge amount of activity in existing Groups
• Conference development and growth
• New website and email list (178)
• National and international partnerships mapped
• Union catalogue / systems project
• Shared storage review
• Governance / constitution reviewed
• New and expanded Groups

6. Our Strategy states…
• What CONUL is
• Why CONUL is distinctive
• What CONUL can do
• Who are CONUL’s users
• What is CONUL’s vision
Created the new Groups …Created the new Groups …

7. • ANLTC / CPDG - Sally Bridge, QUB
• Communications & Outreach Group - Martin
O’Connor, UCC
• Teaching & Learning Group - Niall McSweeney, NUIG
• Regulatory Affairs Group - Margaret Flood, TCD
• Unique & Distinct Collections Group - Susie Bioletti,
TCD
• Collections Group - Eoin McCarney, NLI
• Research Group - Julia Barrett, UCD
• Customer Services Group - Orla Nic Aodha, DCU

8. Delivery…
• New Strategy Implementation Group:
Chaired by a CONUL Director with all 8 group
chairs as members
• New Oversight Group
Kate Kelly RCSI Helen Shenton TCD
John Cox NUIG Hugh Murphy MU

9. Some Next Steps…
• Tender process for union catalogue –
Summer 2017
• Website developments – ongoing
• Twitter / LinkedIN / Facebook presence
• Sectoral and Government engagement
• Huge amount planned in Groups…

10. SIG Planning Day – QUB

11. C&O Group Planning Day – DCU

12. Next Board Meeting - UCC

13. ‘Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to
others ’
Jonathan Swift

14. Our Strategy demonstrates…
Scale in Ireland’s research libraries
Potential in acting collaboratively
Creativity of our staff
Leadership in the digital world
Quality in our services
Depth of our collections
Ambition from our profession

15. The CONUL Libraries…
• Over 1000 staff
• 885 kilometres of shelves
• 25,000 study spaces
• 240,000 users
• 20 million books
• 3 million print loans p.a.
• 250,000 repository items
• 3500 named special collections
• €26million journals spend p.a.
• Over 12 million visits p.a.

16. What are we attempting?
… to raise the profile of all Irish research
collections and services
… to enhance our services to students, scholars
and the public
… to give new opportunities to our staff
… to deliver smart ways of working together
… to transform our ability to manage change
… to expand what it means to be open

17. How far should we go in partnership?
• Independent Libraries:
Acquire and relegate without recourse, restrict
membership, locally competitive
• Consortial Libraries:
Block negotiate, share some services, monitor access
• Networked Libraries:
Interdependent CM/CD, open to all, shared strategy and
vision, competition is international

18. A sample indication – 21%
• Access for all members: 74%
• Create shared storage: 72%
• Shared LMS: 72%
• Deduplication plan: 72%
• Does print scale still matter: 72%
• CONUL as a full network: 74%

19. Thanks to…
• CONUL Board of Directors
• Strategy Implementation Group
• Chairs and members of CONUL groups
• Irish library community
• SCONUL, SCURL, WHELF, RLUK and
LIBER
• All delegates @conulac17 !

20. ‘Nothing is so hard for those
who abound in riches as to
conceive how others can be in
want’
Jonathan Swift