Joining more than 20 membership Communities in BLC’s network, the new Whole E-Book Sharing Working Group will serve as a forum to produce guidance about interlibrary loan processes, licensing negotiations, and system configurations to facilitate interlibrary lending and borrowing of whole e-books.
While several membership Communities and libraries at member institutions across the consortium are actively discussing and offering these services, the new Working Group intends to demystify the process and provide concrete, actionable steps for libraries at member institutions to implement whole e-book sharing.
The Whole E-Book Sharing Working Group is charged with:
- Investigating a vendor-neutral, consortial approach to e-book borrowing and lending for libraries at BLC member institutions
- Crafting documentation to detail e-book borrowing and lending procedures, including license negotiations, holdings considerations, system alterations, and adaptable workflows
- Exploring potential avenues for consortial e-book sharing, advocacy, and group acquisitions
The new working group intends to carry out this work in two phases over the next twelve months. Phase 1 will involve creating an E-Book Sharing Roadmap to lay out the steps needed to facilitate e-book sharing. Phase 2 will involve collaborative outreach and implementation across interested libraries at BLC’s member institutions. The group will also partner with established membership Communities, including the Heads of Resource Management Committee, Heads of Resource Sharing Committee, the Resource Sharing Community of Interest, the Continuing Resources and Metadata Management Community of Interest, and the CDL Steering Committee, to convene an e-books summit in spring 2024 to co-develop a vision for consortial e-book programs and advocacy.
Molly Dupere, Resource Sharing Librarian at Northeastern University, and Marc Hoffeditz, Library Coordinator at Tufts University, will serve as co-conveners of the new working group, and invite additional volunteers to participate.
"We’re particularly interested in individuals with direct experience with the various aspects of e-book sharing, including processing and facilitating e-book requests through interlibrary loan, negotiating e-resource licenses, and managing holdings and licenses,” said Molly Dupere and Marc Hoffeditz. “Our hope is to build a balanced working group of individuals with experiences across a range of systems and library platforms to ensure our processes and documentation meet the diverse needs of BLC’s member institutions.”
Please feel free to reach out to Molly Dupere (e.dupere@northeastern.edu) and Marc Hoffeditz (marc.hoffeditz@tufts.edu) with any questions.