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LTLS is in the business of cooperation and
collaboration and has been for more than forty years. However, 40 years is relatively
young for the cooperation business in general, as many cooperatives
are very old institutions. For example, the International
Co-Operative Alliance (ICA) was founded in 1895 and represents over
800 million members. Many institutions of varied types participate
in cooperatives. These institutions range from the local credit
union to rural electric cooperatives to marketing cooperatives like
Land O’Lakes. Cooperatives exist to help varied
institutions and individuals that share similar values and similar
needs. According to the ICA, “Co-operatives are based
on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality,
equity and solidarity.” Members generally “believe
in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility
and caring for others.” The values and guiding principles
of Lincoln Trail are very similar and include democracy, respect,
good of the whole, and diversity of community. According to Ian
MacPherson from the British Columbia Institute for Co-operative
Studies, one out of every four people who live
in the U.S. are part of a cooperative. He has also noted that
while many cooperatives emerged in rural America, cooperatives are
no longer limited to rural locations. There are housing co-ops,
senior co-ops, “ethnic” co-ops and more; all of these
contribute to the overall improvement of service for the members
of the cooperative.
What does this mean for Lincoln Trail and
other library cooperatives worldwide? First and foremost, it validates the work that libraries
have been doing in this arena. One of the underpinnings of cooperative
library service has been resource sharing. Resource sharing
is essential in the library environment because no matter how big
or small a library, the fact is that no institution can supply all
the resources that the customers of that library need or desire. It
is essential to cooperate and partner with other agencies to achieve
quality customer service. Lincoln Trail’s largest member library,
the University of Illinois, borrows more from the partner libraries
in total than it loans to those same partner libraries. Likewise,
many smaller libraries loan more items in total to larger libraries
than they borrow and, in fact, contribute a larger percentage of their
collection to resource sharing activities. This is about providing
opportunities for our customers to get the best that we have to
give to meet their needs and to be able to serve them quickly and
efficiently.
Libraries in Illinois and Lincoln Trail have
been doing this good work for more than forty years and, during
that time, have encountered many challenges and possibilities. Among the challenges for
cooperatives are reinvigorating the old and nurturing and accepting
the new. Many times in libraries and in other cooperatives we
become complacent with what we have and expect the services and products
to remain the same. Our customers, however, expect our institutions
to be relevant in the 21st century world. Libraries change slowly
and so do cooperatives but we are finding ourselves in a time when
change happens at a lighting pace. For example, how can we be
where our customers are? Our customers are at Google or they
are on their local work or company Web site or intranet. They
are on CNN, on Yahoo or Amazon, or any of thousands of other places. How
can our library catalogs be where they are? OCLC has provided
an opportunity for libraries to make resources more available. Worldcat.org
lets visitors search for items in libraries very easily. A library,
a business, or a personal Web site can download a “search box” and
have it installed on their local Web site. (This is featured
on the left side of the LTLS home page.) Once downloaded, customers
can search the world cat and get back to the LINC catalog to see what
is currently available in the libraries and immediately request the
materials. What, however, if this was easier? What if a customer
could put our catalog or an Illinois catalog on his or her Web site
and get to the catalog with only one click to instantly see if the
resource needed or desired is available in the local library? How
can we make that possible and are we willing to reinvigorate our service
and accept and nurture this new type of service? It is only
one possibility but it does present a challenge.
At the same time more basic changes are needed. Every library
must have a Web site to compete in today’s environment. All
librarians must know about social networking tools so that they can
be where many of their customers are. New modes of cooperation
must be developed so that libraries can keep up and provide possibilities
for the clients. At Lincoln Trail we are working to make that
possible for the libraries. Beginning on Friday, November 10,
the first of the Online Social Networking classes will be offered. Topics
include Blogs, Flickr, RSS, Wiki, Polling software, and more. It
is important that staff of member libraries take advantage of this
opportunity to delve into this wonderful opportunity to learn new
things and get further connected with the customers. If you
doubt that social networking is moving into libraries, think about
all of the blogs you’ve been hearing about that are connected
with ALA and ILA conventions, groups, and discussions. Now libraries
are moving into Wiki’s as ALA has just announced the creation
of the official Wiki site for the 2007 Midwinter Meeting.
Cooperatives evolve just as libraries evolve
and we must keep pace with our customers in order to meet our mission
and to achieve our vision. Library cooperatives have made a difference in our world,
but they must be nurtured to remain relevant and vital. At Lincoln
Trail we want to reinvigorate cooperation and expand the opportunities
for collaborative efforts and partnerships. At the same time,
we want our members to recommit to the continued ownership and
participation in the cooperative.
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