Circulation in a Consortium

Circulation is one area of librarianship where each library can best demonstrate its individual nature as expressed through its policies. Whereas catalog librarians have shared standards and codes, acquisitions librarians have institutional rules and policies applied in standard business practices, and reference librarians must face each question with an established set of reference tools and personal ingenuity, the circulation department primarily serves as the expression of a library’s service ethic, the face of the library. Ask the person on the street what they think a librarian does, and the response may be that this is the person who checks out books. Planning for a cooperative venture, therefore, becomes a much more sensitive matter when different libraries join together to provide shared access to their collections while at the same time trying to retain their unique policies. The University of Idaho Library (UI), University of Idaho Law Library (UI-Law), and North Idaho College’s Molstead Library (NIC) learned this recently as the libraries joined catalogs in an attempt to enhance service to their patrons. As part of an LSTA demonstration grant, these libraries agreed in principle that the best service to their libraries would be through a shared database. This LSTA funding was meant to promote cooperation between partnering libraries as a pilot project for statewide resource sharing. This grant was given to a consortium that included the three Idaho academic libraries and Washington’s Gonzaga University Library, Gonzaga Law Library, and Whitworth College. This group was in the process of migrating to Endeavor’s Voyager system, a change that permitted a reconsideration of certain fundamental philosophies.