It is hard to believe that we are in the last quarter of 2022. As I reflect on all that the Partnership has accomplished together, I want to express my gratitude for your continued investment in the OCLC Research Library Partnership (RLP).
We have maintained high participation in our Works in Progress webinars, SHARES town halls, advisory groups, and other forms of virtual engagement like discussion groups, office hours, and workshops. It is great to see that our programs continue to resonate with our Partners, and we are excited to share what is planned for the end of this year and beyond.
Read on to learn about resources developed by SHARES libraries and to find opportunities to participate in webinars, workshops, RLP office hours, and other ways of making the most of your institution’s membership with the Research Library Partnership.
SHARES produces resource sharing tools for best practices
Dennis Massie, who is celebrating his 25th anniversary as the “SHARES guy,” has been very busy this past year. SHARES libraries continue to gather regularly, sharing their experiences, support, and collective wisdom to lift morale and celebrate their success stories. The SHARES Sharing Special Collections Working Group has taken Principles and Protocols for Sharing Special Collections through Interlibrary Loan developed by the BTAA, adapted them to the SHARES context, and created new tools that facilitate their implementation. Watch the webinar recording introducing the tools, the November recording focused on scanning materials, and stay tuned for outputs from a December discussion session to guide interested institutions through implementing the principles and protocols.
The SHARES community is a great RLP example of the powerful combination of peer learning within a community of practice. A subgroup of the SHARES community collaborated to build a crowdsourced tool focused on facilitating global resource sharing—the International ILL Toolkit. This toolkit was the result of a need expressed by the SHARES network members that would impact all the sharing networks they participated in. The appreciation and value this toolkit has received was highlighted when it was chosen as the topic of the closing presentation at the September IFLA Interlending and Document Supply Conference in Qatar.
Find opportunities for peer support and professional development
The recent White House OSTP memo has many wondering what this new public access mandate will mean for operational workflows, compliance monitoring, and the library itself in the United States. The RLP will convene Partners around this topic to explore common questions and possible solutions together. Although this is a US federal government policy, we are investigating how similar open access policies can affect metadata workflows. A webinar and discussion on this topic was recorded on November 30 on Transforming Metadata: Improving Access to Federally Funded Research, supported by RLP staff. Stay tuned for more information on this topic.
Senior Program Officer Rebecca Bryant has been convening the RLP around bibliometrics and research impact—a growing concern for RLP libraries—through an array of programmatic offerings that include webinars, informal discussions, and a blog series. Watch for more offerings ahead, such as the January 24 webinar where librarians from Virginia Tech will share how they have developed a trusted research impact team at their institution as well as a discussion on addressing bias in research analytics led by colleagues at The Ohio State University and UC San Diego. These programmatic efforts are a direct extension of previous work Rebecca has led on Research Information Management.
Working across campus with multiple stakeholders to provide research support services is more critical than ever. The RLP offered the Social Interoperability Workshop, based upon the 2020 OCLC Research report of the same name, again in November 2022, and will be offering an additional session later in 2023 (dates forthcoming).
New and noteworthy
Please extend a warm RLP welcome to our newest members: Vassar College, MFA Boston, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
We are also pleased to have Richard Urban join our talented RLP team as our newest Senior Program Officer. His work at OCLC will include stewarding the RLP Metadata Managers group, in addition to contributing to an OCLC-wide effort to organize and frame metadata engagement and identify future metadata research needs. Richard comes to us from the Corning Museum of Glass and has deep experience with metadata, especially related to special and digitized collections. Since joining us in August, Richard has already impacted our OCLC Metadata Community engagement work by organizing several webinars and presenting at the ALA CORE Forum.
Gratitude
Thanks to all our Partners who contribute to our research efforts, notably Building a National Archival Finding Aid Network (funded by IMLS) and Operationalizing the Art Research Collective Collection (funded by the Kress Foundation). You will see more outputs from these projects in 2023.
We look forward to connecting with more of you during upcoming office hours. This new offering gives RLP Partners opportunities to meet our team, discuss research, and explore what the findings mean to you and your work. We will be announcing upcoming office hours for January 2023 soon. Watch for sign up opportunities via our lists.
As always, we welcome the opportunity to do an OCLC RLP “checkup” for your institution. This can be a great way to learn how you can take better advantage of your OCLC RLP affiliation.
If you would like to learn more about how to get the most out of your RLP affiliation, please contact me or Senior Manager, Merrilee Proffitt. We will be happy to set up a virtual orientation or refresher on our programming for you and your staff.
It is with deep gratitude that I offer my thanks to you, again, for your continued investment in the Research Library Partnership. We are committed to offering our very best to serve your research and learning needs.
Rachel Frick directs OCLC’s work and engagement with the Research Library Partnership, a venue for research libraries to undertake significant, innovative, collective action to benefit libraries, scholars and researchers everywhere.
