2014 Charleston Library Conference

How much difference does a year make? This session continues the discussion about acquisitions policies and workflows in a next-generation ILS that began at the 2013 Charleston Conference. The Orbis Cascade Alliance is a consortium of 37 public and private academic institutions in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. In January 2013, the Alliance began a 2-year process of migrating all 37 institutions to a shared ILS in order to realize efficiencies and increase collaboration within the consortium. Migrating in 4 cohorts every 6 months, the last cohort of 10 institutions will go live with Ex Libris’s Alma and Primo in January 2015. Panelists will include members from the first and third cohorts who will offer perspectives on changing workflows, challenges and opportunities for the new system, policy issues to consider from a consortial viewpoint, and partnering with vendors to develop tools for improved workflows and real-time acquisitions, as well as large-scale cooperative collection development and assessment. Questions highly encouraged from the audience, especially from attendees who may be pondering, about to embark upon, or in the midst of their own migrations.