Reviewed and endorsed by the ARL Board of Directors February 12-13, 2004
Modified slightly and endorsed by the GRN Advisory Committee March 26, 2004
Introduction
The AAU/ARL Global Resources Network (GRN) has embraced two main goals. GRN will expand access to international resources not currently available to North American students and scholars, in the first instance through discrete projects that focus on significantly expanding the depth, breadth, quantity, range of formats, and variety of international information resources available to our students and scholars. A parallel effort will make our dispersed collections more interdependent and complementary through coordinated acquisitions that are combined with powerful systems for access, discovery, presentation, and delivery.
To advance these goals, ARL will provide the core budget for the Global Resources Network; AAU will build awareness and support for inter-institutional commitments to GRN from university leaders; and, together, AAU and ARL will consolidate a strategic partnership with the Center for Research Libraries in order to ensure administrative support for those GRN projects that seek such assistance, and also to promote synergies across all GRN projects. The remainder of this document summarizes GRN's short- and medium-term priority activities and the outcomes associated with each:
- Coordinating international acquisitions to expand overall coverage and reduce unnecessary duplication;
- Enhancing the scale, scope, and effectiveness of GRN projects; and
- Managing and growing the Global Resources Network.
GRN Goals and Outcomes
1. Coordinating international acquisitions and access to expand overall coverage and reduce unnecessary duplication.
Documenting the Need. Work with OCLC to develop GIS-based maps that graphically represent collections overlap, by country and region, within North American libraries. Where feasible, additional maps will highlight countries and regions whose information output is underrepresented in our library holdings. These maps will illuminate the case for the "network" in a very immediate way. They will also suggest country and regional priorities for targeted cooperative action.
Outreach to Faculty and Other Users. Construct a series of regional and campus forums that will focus on scholarly uses of international resources, how these may be changing, the consequences in terms of collections gaps and resource needs, and the ways in which GRN might respond.
Modeling the Network. Articulate requirements and launch prototypes for cooperative international collection development in accord with three principal models:
- a "first out of the gate" approach for firm orders through which participating libraries agree to a default policy of not duplicating orders for non-core materials already ordered by another library, instead relying on interlibrary loan and document delivery for access to those materials. The orders thus deferred will be redirected toward other materials not yet available within the group;
- the "distributed resources" protocol implemented within the Latin Americanist Research Resources Project, through which libraries reallocate some portion of their materials budget to support more intensive acquisitions in self-selected target areas; and
- efforts that combine these approaches, and that thereby reinforce inter-institutional commitments to shared international collection building.
Discussion documents that detail the prerequisites, procedures, and outcomes associated with each approach will be prepared early in 2004 as a basis for concrete initiatives.
2. Enhancing the scale, scope, and effectiveness of GRN projects.
New Projects. Encourage new GRN projects through a combination of mechanisms that allow existing international initiatives to "self-identify" for affiliation with GRN, plus continuing efforts to generate projects around critical topics or world areas. Seed funding to support new projects is anticipated as of 2005.
New Roles for the Center for Research Libraries. Consolidate the CRL partnership with AAU and ARL in order to provide oversight for the management and operational support for the GRN projects that request such assistance, and also to promote synergies, facilitate communications, and exploit efficiencies among and across all of these projects.
Project Fees. Authorize projects to implement annual participant fees of about $1,000 for ARL libraries to support their outcomes and objectives, as these are informed by--and also as they reinforce--GRN's overall vision and goals. Project fees for non-profit research institutions that are not members of ARL should reflect institutional size and capacity, and also the specific circumstances of international institutions.
A Global Plenary. Support the Center for Research Libraries in convening a "global plenary" through which GRN projects and other international initiatives can share information and explore common possibilities and goals.
Project Oversight and Evaluation. Develop a process to evaluate each project's progress in achieving its internal objectives, and also in advancing GRN's more general goals. Each GRN project (currently there are six) has its own aspirations and plans, which are separately described on the "Global Resources" Web page.
3. Managing and Growing the Global Resources Network.
Updating the Advisory Committee. Review the Advisory Committee's charge and composition as GRN moves from its current transitional phase toward sustained new efforts. The Committee will focus on framing the "outreach" activities through which the concerns of faculty members and other users can help to shape the network; providing additional strategic guidance for the GRN projects; monitoring the partnerships among AAU, ARL, and CRL; and continuously refining a broad vision for the network as a whole.
Securing External Support. Explore possibilities for external support, particularly via foundation grants.
