Partners for success: A decade of cooperation and still on fire

Gale Symposium: Middle East
Partnering for Success
27 - 28 October 2015 Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Partners for success: A decade of cooperation
and still on fire
Houeida Kammourié-Charara
Chair, Lebanese Academic Library Consortium
InfoCommons Librarian, LAU

Partnering for Success2
Definition Of Consortium
Consortia OR Consortiums.
“Formal association of a number of organizations, usually in a
specific geographical area, with agreed goals and objectives.
Services covered can include collection development,
cataloguing, computer alliances, systems support, education
and training, interlibrary loans, library automation,
purchasing, etc.” Keenan, S., & Johnston, C. (2000).

Consortia History
1960s: Creation of union catalogs
Library Consortia flourish.
1970s: Interlibrary loans, joint storage, etc.
1980s: Automation
Stagnation period.
1990s: Re-flourishing of Consortia for electronic resources.
2000s: Consortium of Consortia.
2010s: Emergence of mobile devices and applications such
as: Smart phones, e-book readers, iPads, and other
handheld devices.
 Re-negotiation of existing deals (Turner, 2014)

LebaneseAcademicLibraryConsortium
LIDS

LALC “raison d’être” and more
To cope with changes that took place in the university
environment in Lebanon.
To keep pace with users requests and expectations in academic
libraries, mainly in the e-resources field.
“To cooperate in the selection, pricing negotiations and access
methods of electronic resources in the best interest of the
library users in an economical way for the library” (LALC
mission).
In 2014 LALC started a new era ………….

LALC story
in 2001 University of Balamand invited major academic
institutions in Lebanon to develop a library consortium of
electronic resources.
Three private institutions replied to the UOB invitation, namely
AUB, LAU and NDU (Board members). Jointly they formed
LALC, the first Arab and Lebanese formal Academic Library
Consortium.
LALC is the first Lebanese and Arab Library Consortium that
joined ICOLC.
6

Administrative Structure
• Each member library is represented by one librarian designated by the institution.
• The Consortium Coordinator is elected among LALC members for a period of three (3) years with
the possibility of renewal.
• Meetings are held on a rotation basis at the location of the member institutions.
• Budget planning, payments done on individual basis.
• Agreements before and after (?).
• No membership fees (?).
• Set procedures and guidelines for trialing, acquiring e-resources, & project proposals.
• In 2010 the Lebanese American University launched LALC website:
http:lalc.lau.edu.lb
LALC is a “buying club” for e-resources

Attracting New Members?
Among 8 institutions approached since 2008, 4 are now LALCers:
Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik (USEK)
Board Member since October 2015
Lebanese International University
Beirut Arab University
Lebanese University
Université Saint Joseph
Haigazian University
Antonine University, and
American University of Science and Technology

 In 2002 a draft was prepared for LALC By-Laws.
 This draft had never been approved and was replaced by a Letter of
Agreement (LOA).
 In May 3rd 2004, a formal LOA was signed between LALC members in which
the parties agreed to establish a consortium under the name of "Lebanese
Academic Library Consortium – LALC”. After 2 years of active work, LALC
status was officially announced.
 The 2008 LOA included USJ and USEK in addition to the board members.
 The 2014 LOA included two additional members, namely BAU and HU, and
it is still on fire.
Letter of Agreement

Since 2014…LALC new trend
New era began with the renegotiation of the Big deals
packages.
According to Turner (2014, p.38) “Consortia are
focusing on renegotiating existing deals to derive some
savings to balance their shrinking budgets”.
Same for LALC

Trigger

Change of Management
Against sharing and helping
smaller institutions
Openness and renegotiation of
Big Deals packages
Old Management style
New Management style

How it started?

Trends in e-resources world
 Stabilized Acquisitions
 Renewing existing products
 Renegotiating licenses
 TRENDY LALC is “renegotiating Big Deals e-
journal packages that often involve multiyear
licenses with escalating cost commitments”
(Turner, 2014, p. 38).

Pricing
Charging a flat rate to the consortium, then LALC divides
the cost among its members.
Vendor determines what each participating library will pay
on the basis of use, full-time equivalent enrollment, etc.
(Turner, 2014, p. 42).

Licensing
 Who is signing the licenses?
 LALC Legal entity
 Licensing electronic resources through other
consortia?
 Subscription agents negotiate licenses on behalf
of LALC members?

Invoicing
Vendors usually send invoices directly to the participating LALC
libraries for payment.
Agent pays vendor invoices and then charges back LALC
participating libraries.
For members also members of AMICAL, invoicing is
done via the consortium (Legal entity)

Consortia Barriers
 Cost of participating in consortia
 Loss of local autonomy over collection decisions
 “Healthy” Competition between higher education
institutions
 Developing equitable cost-sharing structures
 Library staff spend more time than they do when
dealing directly with a publisher or vendor (Turner,
2014, p. 38).
 More than one consortium

Advantages
 Break the taboo of “untouchable prices”
 Negotiate from a position of strength
 More discounts
 Waive or stabilize price increases
 Provide access to more content with less monies
 Bargain better license terms

Current Challenges
 Balanced contribution: Small vs Big consortium members (in terms
of budget NOT FTE).
 Sustainable commitment to collaborative e-resource acquisitions
 Potential Solution: Creating a Nonmember libraries status for
libraries willing to participate in an e-resource product deal,
where they pay a fee for the service in addition to the shared
cost of the product (Turner, 2014, p. 41).

Future Challenges
 Sustainability AGAIN
 e-book marketplace

Not available in my Institution

Lebanese ILL/DD Services: LIDS
The idea of having an ILL/DDS service was first
conceived by LALC in 2004, but didn’t succeed due
to internal private reasons.
In October 1, 2007 The Lebanese ILL/DD Services
(LIDS) was born and ILL/DDS policies and
procedures were drafted.
The main goal of LIDS is to initiate processes &
services to expand resource sharing, and to produce
a union list of journal holdings of member
institutions

ILL/DDS at LAU
2007 LIDS: Lebanon-Requests via form among 10 institutions.
2008 WorldShare: Int’l- All countries members in OCLC
2008 AMICAL: France-Requests via emails among 25 members
3 active members only (non members of OCLC)
2014 SUBITO: Germany (not via a consortium)

LAU ILL/DDS Usage Stats 2008-2015
LIDS AMICAL OCLC SUBITO
Year Lending Borrowing Lending Borrowing Lending Borrowing Lending Borrowing
2007- 2008 66 15 0 1 29 164 0 0
2008 - 2009 56 0 1 0 77 356 0 0
2009- 2010 97 0 1 0 95 206 0 0
2010 - 2011 118 0 0 0 235 831 0 0
2011 - 2012 98 84 0 0 325 1040 0 0
2012 - 2013 229 133 6 0 455 917 0 0
2013 - 2014 163 208 18 0 702 907 0 0
2014 - 2015 245 225 1 17 664 780 0 22

Can we bypass ILL/DDS? #icanhazpdf

AUB BAU ESCWA HU LAU MEU NDU UOB USJ USEK
Banque du Liban
ex-Officio

What are other institutions doing?

Can we do more?

Lebanese Library Consortium
LeLC
E-
resources
Chapter
Cooperative
cataloging
Chapter
Info. Lit
Chapter
ILL/DDS
Chapter
Marketing &
Social Media
Chapter

ONE CONCLUSION
Together we are stronger

References
Al-Chidiac, Randa.” The challenging & daring experiment: LALC.” eIFL Workshop, LAU, Beirut, March 2006.
Gardner, C., & Gardner, G. (2015, March). Bypassing Interlibrary Loan Via Twitter: An Exploration of #icanhazpdf Requests.,
2015 . Paper presented at ACRL 2015, Portland, Oregon. Retrieved from
http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/conferences/confsandpreconfs/2015/Gardner.pdf
Kammourié-Charara, Houeida. "Academic library consortia with examples from the Arab World.“ MELCOM 25th Conference,
Beirut. May 2003.
Kammourié-Charara, Houeida. “ LALC: One more time. Special Library Association, Arabian Gulf Chapter: Pre-conference
workshop, Doha. 2008.
Kammourié-Charara, Houeida. "The Role of Consortia in Academic Libraries: A Case Study of the Lebanese Academic Library
Consortium (LALC)." Diss. U of Wales, 2003.
Keenan, S., & Johnston, C. (2000). Concise dictionary of library and information science. (2nd ed.). London: Bowker-Saur.
Kopp, J. J. (1998). Library consortia and information technology: The past, the present, the promise. Information Technology
and Libraries, 17(1), 7-12. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/215831831?accountid=27870

References
Lebanese Academic Library Consortium (2004). Annual Report, 2003-2004.
Lebanese Academic Library Consortium (2008). Annual Report, 2005-2006 & 2006-2007.
Lebanese Academic Library Consortium (2012). Annual Report, 2009-2010, 2010-2011 & 2011-2012.
Reason, B. N., & Darko-Ampem, K. (2002). Developments in academic library consortia from the 1960s through to 2000: A
review of the literature. Library Management, 23(4), 203-212. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/198829939?accountid=27870
Turner, C. N. (2014). E-resource acquisitions in academic library consortia. Library Resources & Technical Services, 58(1), 33-
48. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1541487993?accountid=27870
Websites:
AMICAL http://www.amicalnet.org/
LALC http://lalc.lau.edu.lb/
International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/
OCLC http://www.oclc.org/default.htm

Thank YouE-mail houeida.Charara@lau.edu.lb

Partners for success: A decade of cooperation and still on fire

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Partners for success: A decade of cooperation and still on fire