Rethinking Resource Sharing Innovation Awards
The Rethinking Resource Sharing (RRS) Innovation Awards recognize and honor an individual or institution for changes they made to improve users’ access to information through resource sharing in their library, consortium or state. It is hoped that the award will encourage libraries and librarians to make changes in how they do resource sharing to improve service to users. RRS looks for efforts where people didn’t wait for the profession to provide better services for users.
The Rethinking Resource Sharing Innovation Awards consist of a $1,000 cash award. In 2008, Rethinking Resource Sharing made two awards. This year’s recipients are the North Carolina Libraries for Virtual Education (NC LIVE) and the Information Delivery Services Project (IDS) in New York.
NC LIVE received the award for making more than 500 hours of licensed PBS videos available to its 198 members via streaming video files and significantly improving user access by eliminating the need to share physical copies of the material.
The IDS was recognized for designing rapid access to more than seven million volumes for 140,000 students and 10,000 faculty members. The project was developed by a team at SUNY Geneseo's Milne Library and currently serves 27 academic libraries in New York, both public and private.
Funding for the 2008 awards was provided by the Alliance of Library Service Networks.
Applicants were asked to provide a description of user-centric service changes they had made that improved resource sharing in their library, consortium or state.
Award Committee for 2008:
Anne K Beaubien, Director, Cooperative Access Services & Grants
Officer,
University of Michigan Library, Chair
Gina Persichini, Networking Consultant, Idaho State Library
Tanner Wray, Director of Public Services, University of
Maryland Libraries
Candidates were evaluated based on the quality of the contribution they made to create a user-centric service that improved resource sharing. Other factors that were considered included impact on users, scalability, sustainability, ability for other libraries/consortia to replicate the idea, and initiative and risk taking.
Recipients will be announced at the ALA RUSA STARS Rethinking Resource Sharing Preconference 2008. In addition, recipients will be invited to present (with their registration fee waived) at the IFLA satellite preconference, Rethinking Access to Information: Evolving Perspectives on Information Content and Delivery, which will be held in Boston, MA, August 6-7, 2008.