College and Research Libraries CARLOS A. CUADRA and RUTH J. PATRICK Survey of Academic Library Consortia in the U.S. In 1970 USOE initiated a nationwide study of academic library con- sortia. The purpose of the study, carried out by SDC, was to develop a fund of descriptive and prescriptive information about library con- sortium activities. The study involved a questionnaire survey to iden- tify and describe all known consortia, and a case-study analysis of fifteen selected consortia. This paper discusses the survey method- ology, the findings, and two major products: a Directory of Academic Library Consortia, and Guidelines for the Development of Academic Library Consortia. The la.tter presents a twenty-four step process that may serve as a useful model for library consortium development. INTRODUCTION INTERLIBRARY cooPERATION is not a new phenomenon. Awareness of the vast and growing world literature, in rela- tion to the holdings and resources of any single library, has fostered among li- brarians an acute appreciation of the interdependence of most of the nation's libniries and of the requirement for some level of cooperation. In recent years there has been a strong movement toward formal arrange- ments for sharing library resources. Al- though these arrangements can be de- scribed in a variety of ways, the result- ing organizations are usually referred to as consortia or networks. In contrast to the simple and largely informal arrange- ments for interlibrary loan, consortium or network arrangements require that members share system planning and de- velopment resources, as well as operat- ing responsibilities and functions. Carlos A. Cuadra w with the System Development Corporation. Ruth ]. Patrick is at the University of California at Berke- ley. Although acceptance and implemen- tation of library consortia have in- creased, little guidance has been avail- able to libraries interested in exploring the idea-no design data, no standards, and no models upon which institutions might base better library service through joint efforts. In fact, there has been a dearth of good descriptive data on li- brary consortia. To help remedy this sit- uation, the U.S. Office of Education (USOE) contracted with System De- velopment Corporation ( SDC) to un- dertake a study of academic library con- sortia. A major purpose of this project was to analyze the usefulness and ef- fectiveness of various patterns of library cooperation and to devise practical guidelines for improving the planning, development, and operation of academic library consortia. SuRVEY PROCEDURES Project methodology was designed to accomplish two major tasks: 1. Plan and carry out a broad-scale survey to identify and describe all consortia in American higher edu- cation that include libraries as a I 271 272 I College & Research Libraries • July 1972 significant component. 2. Conduct in-depth analysis of se- lected library consortia to discover salient characteristics, similarities and differences, achievements and problems-and the ways in which these are interrelated. Each of these tasks was to lead to a major product., The first was a Directory identifying all known library consortia in higher education and listing their components (participating libraries) and characteristics. The second was a com- prehensive Guidelines document pre- senting a basic model for planning, de- veloping, operating, and evaluating li- brary consortia in higher education. This document was to be based on the -find- ings from both of the major project tasks. Identification of Existing Academic; Library Consortia To identify the universe of academic library consortia, a questionnaire ( Q 1) was sent to 2,600 colleges and univer- sities throughout the United States ask- ing the recipients for the names and ad- dresses of consortia in which they held membership. It also included three items asking nonconsortium libraries about any prior experience with consortia and about their attitude toward possible fu- ture participation in cooperative activ- ities. The purpose of the latter questions was to provide a basis for identifying and adding new participants to the Di- rectory, should it be decided to update the Directory in a year or two. Of the 2,600 Ql's mailed, 1,000 were returned within four weeks following the initial mailing. A follow-up mailing, sent to the 1,600 colleges and universities 0 Of the 783 QI respondents who did not belong to a consortium, 216 gave their reasons for nonmembership. The three most mentioned reasons were lack of need (fifty-eight libraries), prohibitive cost (thirty-six libraries), and ad- ministrative difficulties (thirty-three libraries). Some libraries mentioned that no one had ever proposed membership to them. that had not responded, resulted in an additional 516 returns, for a total of 1,516. Of the 1,516 libraries responding, 698 or forty-six percent reflected par- ticipation in some kind of cooperative activity. 0 Of these, 409 were identified as possible academic library consortia, and these became the target audience for a second, more detailed question- naire ( Q2). The total number of Q2's returned to SDC was 173. The other 236 groups not filling out a Q2 indicated either by let- ter or telephone that they were not aca- demic library consortia or that they were otherwise outside the scope of the study. In the process of screening the 173 returned Q2's, it became necessary to tighten the definition of "academic li- brary consortium" in order to decide which groups should be included in the directory. To comply with the original intentions of USOE, the project staff developed the following six criteria for inclusion in the Directory: 1. The cooperative must be organized voluntarily to pursue activities of benefit to the academic participants involved. 2. The participating institutions must be autonomous; that is, they must report to separate Boards of Re- gents or other separate, higher level governing bodies. 3. More than half the members of the group must be academic li- braries. 4. Two or more libraries must be in- volved, with activities extending beyond traditional interlibrary loan as defined by ALA rules. 5. If the library cooperative is part of a higher level, multipurpose high- er education consortium, it must be a separate entity -with the goal of improving library service. 6. The consortium must have de- veloped beyond the exploratory stage, i.e., the group must have declared itself a cooperative en- tity and must at least be planning joint activities. Application of these criteria resulted in the elimination of forty-nine Q2 re- turns, leaving 125 academic library con- sortia for inclusion in the Directory. In preparing the Directory, the data for each consortium were first edited for completeness and then keyboarded directly from the questionnaire on an IBM Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewrit- er. A draft of each entry was sent to the subject with an accompanying letter and checklist requesting that the entry be reviewed and any missing material add- ed. Ninety percent of the entries in the Directory responded with updated drafts and/ or missing information. Any further questions were resolved with follow-up phone calls. The survey procedures followed make it highly likely that a very high per- centage-if not all-of the existing aca- demic library consortia in the U.S. were identified and that their entries in the Directory of Academic Library Con- sortia are accurate and complete. The In-Depth Case Studies The Q2 survey returns provided a wealth of information on various aspects of academic library consortia: objectives, financial planning, management and staffing, facilities, and problem-solving and evaluative techniques. To supple- ment this information and to provide more in-depth information on the prob- lems and issues associated with consorti- um development, the project staff con- ducted a case-study analysis of fifteen selected groups. In selecting the subjects to be visited, careful consideration was given to the following variables and fac- tors of interest, as reflected in the Q2 re- turns: -Breadth and scope of the consor- tium's purpose and objectives -Existence of centralized headquar- ters -Number of members Academic Library Consortia I 213 -Geographic distance between par- ticipants -Membership in multipurpose higher education consortia -Amount, source, and stability of funding -Homogeneity of participating li- braries, e.g., with respect to type and size -Length of existence -Kinds of agreements and rules for participation -Current mix of planned and operat- ing activities -Staffing patterns -Views on problems and ·recom- mended solutions -Extent of direct services from the headquarters facility (if any) -Extent of automation The final group of consortia selected by SDC and approved by USOE com- prised: -Associated Colleges of Central Kan- sas -Collection and Evaluation of Ma- terials on Black Americans -Colorado Academic Libraries Book Processing Center -Common Library of the Graduate Theological Union -Consortium of Universities -Consortium of Western Colleges and Universities -Dayton-Miami Valley Consortium Libraries -Five Associated University Libraries (FAUL) -Kansas City Regional Council for Higher Education ( KCRCHE) -Mississippi Valley Libraries Coop- erative Service -New England Library Information Network ( NELINET) -New Hampshire College and Uni- versity Council ( NHCUC) -Northwest Association of Private Colleges and Universities ( NAPCU) -Ohio College Library Center (OCLC) 274 I College & Research Libraries • July 1972 -Tri-State College Library Coopera- tive The general plan in conducting the case-study analysis was to spend one day at the headquarters facility (if there was one) and one or two days following with one or two member libraries, with a follow-up visit to headquarters or ex- tended visits to more member libraries, if necessary. The kinds of persons in- terviewed at the headquarters included the Director ( or Coordinator or Chair- man), the director of the board of trust- ees, staff members, and representatives of the State Library. If the library co- operative were part of an educational consortium, we contacted the Director of the educational consortium and/ or the faculty member who represented the librarians to the educational group. At individual libraries, we interviewed directors and staff members of libraries that were currently members, and direc- tors of libraries that had been members but had withdrawn from the consortium. The interviews varied in length from one to four and a half hours. In all, seventy persons were interviewed in the course of fifty-eight interviews. To help ensure collection of all re- quired information, as well as the best use of interviewers' and interviewees' time, two detailed field site visit check- lists were developed and tested: one for headquarters, and one for individ- ual library members. The checklist for headquarters devoted approximately half of its coverage to planning and develop- ment, and the other half to operational matters, including purposes and objec- tives, financial support activities, facil- ities, personnel and management, and evaluation and measurement. The check- list for library members covered a more limited range of topics, focusing on the benefits to the library from partici- pation and the problems associated with participation. Wherever possible, evalua- tive information provided by the head- quarters was cross-checked with that of individual library members, to ensure that the case-study analysis reflected both perspectives. The first group of visits to five con- sortia was conducted in the summer of 1970. These groups had been suggested by USOE and available preliminary in- formation had suggested that they would indeed provide rewarding visits. These visits, carried out before Q2 survey re- turns were available, helped to test and refine the field site visit checklists. Most of the field site interviews were carried out by a team of two librarians/ system analysts, with tape recorder back- up; several were conducted by one li- brarian/ analyst and a few, early in the project, were conducted by three project staff members as a training exercise, and as an aid in defining the most uni- form and productive interview proce- dures. The tape recordings were tran- scribed, and copies of the transcripts keyed for later analysis in connection with the Guidelines document. It should be mentioned that those in- terviewed were extraordinarily coopera- tive. They recognized the importance of helping other libraries to avoid some of the problems that they themselves had encountered and were, therefore, quite candid in identifying their major prob- lems and in suggesting ways in which others could avoid or minimize similar problems. One consortium director al- most insisted on the project team's talk- ing to a particular member library that was quite disenchanted with the group's progress, as well as with libraries that were very well satisfied. This was con- sistent with our general procedure, which was to attempt to interview both satis- fied and dissatisfied member libraries. FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS Range and Scope of Consortium Activities The cooperative activities in which the greatest number of academiG library Academic Library Consortia I 275 TABLE 1 LIST OF LmRARY CoNsORTIUM AcTIVITIES Number of Consortia Number of Consortia Currently Planning or Activity Operating Activity Percent Developing Activity Percent Reciprocal borrowing privileges 97 Expanded interlibrary loan service 80 Union catalogs or lists 78 Photocopying services 72 Reference services 50 Delivery services 44 Mutual notification of purchase 40 Special communications services 35 Publication program 34 Catalog card production 34 ( Other) Cataloging support 33 Joint purchasing of materials 30 Assigned subject specialization in acquisition 28 (Other) Acquisitions activities 22 Microfilming 21 Central resource or storage center 21 Bibliographic center 17 Joint research projects 17 Clearinghouse 15 Personnel training 15 User orientation programs 14 Other Bindery services Recruitment programs consortia are currently engaged (see Ta- ble I) are reciprocal borrowing privi- leges, expanded interlibrary loan ser- vices, the production of union catalogs or lists, and photocopying services. These activities typically involve low cost and low levels of required compromise among mem her libraries, and they provide fairly immediate benefits. In contrast, relatively few groups are engaged in activities, such as computerized catalog- card production, that require large ini- tial financial investment, long lead times before benefits are realized, and hard-to-reach agreement on practices and standards. The cooperative activities being undertaken by cooperatives are described in greater detail in the Guide- lines document. Financial Support The mean funding level of forty-seven consortia who reported their budgets is $75,000, with fifty percent (eighteen 9 7 6 78% 4 3% 64 9 7 62 24 19 58 11 9 40 16 13 35 14 11 32 23 18 28 12 10 27 14 11 27 12 10 26 18 14 24 29 23 22 33 26 18 21 17 17 9 7 17 11 9 14 16 13 14 18 14 12 13 10 12 21 17 11 13 10 7 6 5 6 4 3 5 5 4 p ercent of the total) reporting that they operate on budgets of less than $75,000. Interestingly enough, fifty-four percent of the respondents report that they have no formal budget. Judging from the sample, members of consortia that have no identifiable budget carry out cooper- ative activities with their regular staff and do not know how much the activity is actually costing. The two major patterns of funding are internal (consortium members) and external (federal, state, or munici- pal government, or foundations). Inter- nal funding is obtained from dues paid by members, from fees for services or products, or both. I. Dues. Dues from member libraries or their parent institutions comprise the major funding source for ap- proximately forty-two percent of the total budgets for sixty-one re- sponding groups. Membership dues vary ranging from $25.00 per mem- 276 I College & Research Libraries • July 1972 her (to cover postage and station- ery) to $10,000 (to cover research and development of computerized library systems ) . 2. Fees. Service fees from member li- braries or their parent institutions represent ten percent of the source of major funding. Service fees from individual users represent two per- cent. One problem that library groups experience when this meth- of funding is employed is maintain- ing a stable level of activity of op- erations until all fees are received. 3. Dues and Fees, Combined. Only five of the library cooperatives in- dicated that their funds are based on dues paid by members as well as fees for services or products. External funding is obtained through federal, state or municipal support. In addition, a library consortium may re- ceive money from a larger educational consortium of which it is a member; this money might consist of Title IIIC funds , or of dues charged by the parent institu- tion. Although external funding can be of great use, only thirty-two percent of all the funding for the sixty-one respond- ing groups is from external sources. At- titudes about sources of funding varied. Some members we interviewed wel- comed external funding because they felt it makes it easier for the libraries to achieve cooperation. More often, those interviewed felt that it was unwise to rely solely on external funding. Facilities The questionnaire survey of all 125 library consortia indicated that use of computer technology is limited: Only thirty-three groups (twenty-six percent) use a computer, with service being pro- vided most commonly by a university computing center. There were only two instances in which the computer service was provided by the library consortium itself. The cooperatives were asked to indicate facilities and equipment spe- cifically acquired to support library con- sortium activities. The most frequently acquired items were office space ( 38 consortia), work space ( 28), telephone or teletype instruments ( 25), storage space ( 24), trucks or other transporta- tion devices ( 21), and copying and/ or microfilm equipment ( 14) . Management and Staff The consortium director is responsible for providing the guidance and manage- ment control needed for the consortium to achieve its objectives. The decision of whether or not to have a director depends on many fac- tors, particularly on the range and scale of planned activities. Fmty-one (thirty- three percent) of the 125 academic li- brary consortia identified have direc- tors, nearly all of whom are full-time. On the basis of the survey data, includ- ing the case-study interviews, it appears that a consortium is likely to need full- time direction if a broad range of cen- tralized activities is contemplated. Ac- tivities such as computerized technical processing require a concerted, sustained management effort. If the cooperative decides not to appoint a director, then his duties have to be divided among the library directors. In most consortia in the case-study sample, an elected chairman shared the work with the library direc- tors. A question that often arises when se- lecting a director is, "Should the direc- tor be selected from the staff of one of the member libraries?" Some librarians interviewed felt that it would be a dis- advantage for the director to come from outside the system, because it would take too long for him to learn about the operations of the participating libraries. Others felt that if the director came from inside the system, members might feel that he was partial to the library with which he had been associated. The final decision really seems to depend on how the directors feel about the particu- lar candidates and their qualifications. Our observations, reinforced by com- ments from the literature, lead us to be- lieve that, indeed, a special type of leadership is needed to provide effec- tive direction to library consortia. Al- though made in reference to educational consortia, Paterson's statement ( 9, p.4) is applicable to library cooperatives: ". . . the kind of leadership needed for consortia calls for 'authority' to be based on the power of suggestion and per- suasion-quite different from the tradj- tional hierarchical leadership." Relatively few consortia employ a sig- nificant number of full-time staff mem- bers. Most cooperative activities are carried out by the current library staff; separate staffing is employed only when special activities, such as technical proc- essing, are undertaken. Interestingly enough, most consortia reported no dif- ficulty in obtaining qualified personnel, when required. Nature of Interlibrary Relationships The questionnaire study, the case studies, and the literature on consortia (and networks) have revealed that the interrelationship of academic consortia -as well as academic libraries-is ex- tremely complex. Figure 1 illustrates the interrelationships that were encountered in the study. For example, Library A is a member of an educational consortium, Consortium 2, the libraries of which are engaged in only one cooperative ac- tivity: the development of a specific sub- ject area. Library A is also a member of an academic library consortium, Con- sortium 1, that is in the process of pro- viding extended interlibrary loan and reciprocal borrowing privileges, as well as considering other possible activities. Finally, Library A is also a member of an academic library consortium, Con- sortium 3, that is concerned with cen- tralized technical processing. Further- more, Library A has had the option ( se- lected by one of its sister libraries ) to Academic Library Consortia I 277 be a member of Consortium 5, which consists of academic and public libraries. In the meantime, Consortium 3 is in the process of negotiating with Consortium 4, in order to benefit from the latter's re- cent developmental accomplishments. The results of the case s·tudies sug- gest that most library consortia are in a state of flux, considering new activities and new cooperative arrangements for mutual benefit. It is interesting, there- fore, that there is very little communi- cation or coordination among groups. Many librarians were unaware of devel- opments outside their consortium; this is understandable, since no directory or other comprehensive source of informa- tion about library consortia was in exis- tence prior to the present USOE-spon- sored study. Evaluation of Consortium Operations and Benefits Evaluation is, or should be, an im- portant part of any cooperative's work. In the questionnaire survey, library con- sortia directors or chairmen were asked to indicate which techniques they used to evaluate the effectiveness of their li- brary consortium activities. The results are shown in Table 2. The most often used evaluative technique consisted of informal feedback. More formal methods of evaluation were less frequently used. During the in-depth studies, it was possible to gain better insight into how these various methods of evaluation were used, the activities for which they were most often used, and how well they worked, as well as some feeling for ways in which their use could be improved. Several groups evaluated the benefits of the increased library resources now available to users by totaling the col- lections of all the member libraries. One must question the value of this kind of evaluation. It may be impressive to state that the user now has access to X thou- sands of volumes, but the relevant ques- tion is, "Are these the resources the user l 278 I College & Research Libraries • July 1972 CONSORTIUM 1 (ACADEMIC UBRAfUES) CONSORTIUM 2 (EDUCATION CONSORTIUM) CONSORTIUM 3 '--------.J (ACADEMIC LIBRARY) LEGEND -- PRIMARY FLOYI OF LIBRARY RELATED INTERAC'riON AND MATERIALS 0 LIBRARY 0 CENTRALIZED HEADQUARTERS ~Q'! MEMBER OF F.OlJCATION CONSORTIUM '-, r -., I 0 j EDUCATION CONSORTIUM CENTRALIZED L _:.J HEADQUARTERS Figure l CONSORTIUM 'i (ACADEMIC AND PUBLt(. LIBRARIES) CONSORTIUM 4 ACADEMIC LIBRARIES Possible Interrelationships of Libraries and Consortia (Simplified) Academic Library Consortia I 279 TABLE 2 TECHNIQUES UsED BY CoNsORTIA TO EvALUATE ACTIVITY EFFECTIVENESS Number of Consortia Evaluation Technique Using Technique1 Percent Informal Feedback from Library Personnel Participating in Consortium Activities 82 66 Informal Feedback from the Ultimate Users of Services Analyses of Costs and Usage Statistics 61 49 36 29 Formal Surveys of Operations at the Participating Libraries Operations Research Analyses (e.g. Work Flow, Cost 26 21 Effectiveness Tradeoffs ) 16 13 Formal Surveys of the Ultimate Users of Consortium Services Other 13 10 5 4 No Answer to Questionnaire Item 1 Many consortia used several evaluation techniques. needs, and is he using them?" The more formalized methods of eval- uation, such as analyses of cost and usage statistics, formal surveys of op- erations of the participating libraries and of users, and operations research analyses, were most often used by con- sortia engaged in large-scale computer- ized activities. This kind of evaluation was sometimes carried out by a colilSul- tant; in other instances, it was done by the headquarters staff, because an evalu- ation performed by outsiders was felt to be a possible cause of misunderstanding and dissension. In addition to evaluating the effec- tiveness of specific activities, consortia need to make an overall evaluation of how well they are meeting their objec- tives. Most members interviewed felt that their consortium was successful, as judged by some of the following cri- teria: 1. Present members remained in the cooperative and continued to con- tribute time or money. 2. New members were joining. 3. Federal or other external funds were obtained. 4. The consortium had survived with- out external funds, or after exter- nal funds had ceased. 5. Activities were providing new and/ or improved services for the library users. 33 26 6. Costs had been reduced. It is evident from the questionnaire survey and the in-depth case studies that evaluation of activities is not ex- tensive. The survey also indicated that fifty-four percent have no identifiable budget. One likely interpretation is that librarians are participating in joint ac- tivities in addition to their regular li- brary activities. Thus the time and mon- ey they have to plan, to develop, and to evaluate cooperative activities is limit- ed. Although time may be limited-and, in fact, especially because time may be limited-it is vitally important that li- brarians make a careful evaluation of the costs and benefits of cooperative ac- tivities. By so doing they will help not only themselves, but also other libraries that might benefit from cooperative ac- tivities and that lack only the necessary descriptive and evaluative information to appraise their alternatives and take the next steps. Development Procedures The only adjective that aptly de- scribes the approaches taken by aca- demic library consortia in developing their activities is "diverse." Indeed, our initial conception of consortium devel- opment in terms of a fairly linear How of activities proved to be optimistic. When several librarians were asked to relate their own developmental history 280 I College & Research Libraries • July 1972 to a sequence of steps distilled by the SDC staff from preliminary inquiries and from system planning theory, most of them commented that they had had to go through several of the steps sev- eral times. The time required by consortia to achieve the final phase ( Operation and Evaluation) varied tremendously and took, in some cases, up to fifteen years. In many cases it was easy to see, with hindsight, how the developmental cycle could have been shortened, even by a matter of years. With the wealth of ex- perience that is now accessible through the Directory and the Guidelines docu- ments, described in the next section, any group of interested libraries should be able to develop and move into operations in a relatively short time and with little or no wasted effort. MAJOR PRODUCTS OF THE STUDY As indicated earlier, two major prod- ucts resulted from the study: the Direc- tory of Academic Library Consortia, and the Guidelines for the Development of Academic Library Consortia. The Directory The Directory of Academic Library Consortia is a 290-page document, the main body of which comprises 125 en- tries describing currently known aca- demic library consortia in the U.S. Each entry covers the following categories of information: Consortium N arne and Date Founded Part Of Area Served Participating Li- braries and Year Joined Purposes and Objec- tives Current Activities Projected Activities Special Services Conditions of Par- ticipation Annual Budget and Source Staffing Advisory Boards Publication Headquarters Information Source The second part of the Directory con- sists of two statistical tables. The first provides an overview of all Directory entries along the dimensions of age, size, and membership, together with staffing and budget information and an indica- tion of the kind of agreement upon which each consortium is founded. The second table displays the activities in which each consortium engages, thus providing an overall picture of the dis- tribution of activities among the various cooperatives. The third major part of the Directory comprises three indexes: the Directory Index, a State Index, and an Activity In- dex. Thus Directory users can easily identify consortia in their state or area that are engaged in particular kinds of activities of interest. By referring to the main entry one can also identify the ap- propriate contact point for further infor- mation. Judging by the cooperation re- ceived by the SDC project staff, inter- ested libraries should be able to obtain a great deal of helpful information and advice. The Guidelines The Guidelines is a 200-page docu- ment intended to provide guidance for libraries that are forming or plan to form a consortium. Before discussing the con- tent of the Guidelines a further com- ment on methodology is necessary. In order to devise practical guidelines to improve the planning, development, .and operation of academic library con- sortia, it seemed necessary to take full advantage of the knowledge and experi- ence-both successful and unsuccessful -of existing consortia. Data from our ini- tial site visits were used in conjunction with Grupe's procedural for education consortia to develop a first approxima- tion of guidelines for academic library consortia. The initial guidelines were then discussed with persons at each con- sortium who were most familiar with its development. They were asked to com- ment on how well the guideline steps fit the actual development of their con- sortium, and to make suggestions, as a result of their experience, on how a con- sortium should be developed. Thus, while the recommended approach to de- velopment that is contained in the Guidelines is prescriptive, it is based, wherever possible, on the lessons gath- ered from real experiences, of actual groups. In those instances where proce- dures used could not be recommended, recommendations were made on the ba- sis of an application of well-recognized principles of system analysis and project management. We have identified four phases in the development process: Exploratory Phase, Planning Phase, Development Phase, and Operation and Evaluation Phase. Each phase can be subdivided further into a series of steps, shown in Figure 2. Each step is described in detail in the Guide- lines. The information included under most of the steps is a combination of descriptive material-discussing the var- ious ways in which the step has been ac- complished by various consortia-the pre- scriptive material-recommending ways of accomplishing the steps that seem most desirable in the light of the evi- dence gathered during the study. The developmental steps provided in the Guidelines are modular in that ( 1) not all steps are necessary for every consortium; (2) steps may be used in different sequences; ( 3) several steps may be performed simultaneously; and ( 4) steps tend to be iterated. For ex- ample, if members of an established consortium wish to undertake the devel- opment of a new activity, they would find it useful to cycle back through Steps 3, 4, and 5 in the Planning Phase, as well as most of the steps in the De- velopment and Operation and Evalua- tion Phases. While, obviously, no single consortium-planning model or any rec- ommended series of steps will fit the needs of every planning project, it can Academic Library Consortia I 281 serve as a useful point of departure from which adjustments can be made to reflect local goals, resources, planning ex- perience, and institutional receptivity. The model development process sug- gests that the Exploratory Phase could be carried out by most in two to four months, and the Planning Phase in from six to twelve months. We believe that these are reasonable estimates, provided that the cooperatives take full advantage of the experience now available to them. The Development Phase is, of course, the most highly variable, since it depends upon the particular activities undertaken, and the Operation and Evaluation Phase is essentially continuous and open-end- ed. OuTLOOK FOR FuroRE DEVELOPMENT OF AcADEMIC LmRARY CoNSORTIA If one can judge from trends, aca- demic library consortia are undoubtedly here to stay. Ninety-six of the 125 or- ganizations that we studied were estab- lished between 1966 and 19701 Further- more, the predicted continuing develop- ment of education consortia (Patterson, 9, p. 3) suggests that more than a few librarians that are not now members of a consortium may, at some time in the future, receive memos from other col- lege or university presidents informing them that they have become members of a consortium. One can even see faint glimmers of consortia of national scope. For example, several theological libraries have found it beneficial to merge their resources. Now, instead of being small libraries with small collections, the merged library is the third largest theo- logical library in the country. This new library is working on cooperative ar- rangements with a large state university, as well as a large private university; it is also considering the development of a national network of theological libraries. This example is only one highlight of the exciting possibilities that exist for future growth and expansion. EXPLORATORY PHASE cONstoERATtON or I EXISTING CONSORTI A I IOENTIFICATIOH OF I POTENTIAL MEMBERS I DISCUSSION OF FEASIBILITY I I CONSIDERATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION CONSORTIA (2 TO 4 MONTHS) PLANNING PHASE IDENTIFICATION OF I Oe.JECTIYES 10ETERMINAT ION OF l ORGAN I tAT tONAL STRUCTURE: I DEVELOPMENT OF I PfiiOGRAM PLANS I OETEIIIMINATION OF _I =~~~~~~D YINANCIA~ IDETEfiJM IN AT ION OF I f'UNOING SOUJI:CES I :FOfiiMULATION OF I fiiEQU l fiJEO AGII:UMENTS ,~,,OINTMENT 0,. I IDIJtECTOfiJ (I TO 12 MONTHS) I~OCATION 0' I'ACILITIEI D!V!LOI"'IENT P'HAS! OUAIL.tO ACT IVITY I OIEIION IUTAILIIHMEfrfTOr I IMPLEMENTATION ICHIOULU I OIVILOIIIMENT 0' I EVALUATION illlfiJOCI:OUIUI I :MOO"ICATION O' QOAL.I AND OIJECTIVII !D!P'f.NDS DN ACTIVITif.S UNDf.ftTAKf.N; TIMf. TOO VAftiAI~f. ,Oft SP'f.C"ICATION) Figure 2 Model of Consortium Development Process OP'UATION l f.VA~UATION P'HAS! 11NITIAL.ACTIYITY I IYAI.UATION IIYAL\,IATION CONTINUOUS The pressure toward consortium de- velopment will certainly continue, at least until the nation provides more ser- vices analogous to the Library of Con- gress cataloging service (including MARC). One library consortium direc- tor expressed the need of national lead- ership in coordinating what has devel- oped from this grass roots movement, in order to bring to fruition the electronic national library networks that have been forecast since the EDUCOM conference. As potential candidates for leadership he suggested the newly formed National Commission on Libraries and Informa- tion Science, EDUCOM, or the Library of Congress. Furthermore, the efforts of academic library consortia have to be considered in relation to other library consortia (e.g., special, public, and mixed), as well as in relation to com- prehensive state network plans such as are being proposed in several states. Barring the establishment of a national library system, which is certainly years -if not decades-away, the survival of many small private colleges is being threatened by the economic recession. Since many of these libraries cannot provide adequate service to their users, Academic Library Consortia I 283 arrangements for cooperation among themselves or with other institutions may become mandatory. There is also increas- ing pressure on libraries to support new methods of instruction that-at least in some institutions-are causing students to become more independent in their use of the library and, as a consequence, are creating a demand for an even broader collection of library material for use in individual research. But it is clear that most affiuent academic libraries cannot possibly acquire sufficient por- tions of the world's available literature to satisfy all their user groups; in fact, they must begin to delimit the fields of knowledge in which they will build ex- tensive library collections. As this oc- curs, they will be forced to rely more and more on access, through reciprocal arrangements, to the specialized collec- tions of companion libraries. Given the viability of academic li- brary consortia, the chailenge is to find -and use-efficient means _of establish- ing collective operations where there is clear need and strong interest. We be- lieve that the two major tools developed from the present study should be of considerable aid in this regard. REFERENCES 1. Cuadra, Carlos A. Phase I Progress Re- port on Study @f Academic Library Con- sortia, System Development CorpC!>ration, TM-4597, August 1970. 2. Cuadra, Carlos A.; DeLanoy, Diana D.; Patrick, Ruth J.; and Mantius, Kean. Final Report on Phase II Study of Academic Li- brary Consortia, System Development Cor- poration, TM-4597 /004, November 1971. 3. DeLanoy, Diana D., and Cuadra, Carlos A. Phase II Progress Report on Study of Academic Library Consortia, System De- velopment Corporation, TM-4597 /001, Au- gust 1971. 4. DeLanoy, Diana D., and Cuadra, Carlos A. Directory of Academic Library Con- sortia, System Development Corporation, TM-4597 /003/00, September 1971. 5. DeLanoy, Diana D., and Cuadra, Carlos A. Phase I Final Report on Study of Aca- demic Library Consortia, System Develop- ment Corporation, TM-4597 /002, 1971. 6. Five Associated University Libraries. In- terlibrary access: a two-year report of the F AUL access committee, Five Associated University Libraries, Syracuse, 1968-1970. 7. Grupe, Fritz H. "The Establishment of Collegiate Cooperative Centers," Ph.D. dis- sertation, State University of New York, Albany, August 1969. 8. Patrick, Ruth J. Guidelines for the De- velopment of Academic Library Consortia, System Development Corporation, TM- 4597 /005, November 1971. 9. Patterson, Lewis D. Consortia in American Higher Education, Report 7, November 1970, ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Ed- ucation, Washington, D.C., 1970. 10. Sagan, Edgar L. "A Network Model for Planning and Establishing Higher Educa- tion Consortiums," Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1969. 11. Schatz, Sharon. "Facsimile Transmission in Libraries: a State-of-the-Art Survey," Li- brary Resources and Technical Services, 12:5-15 Winter 1968.