Collaborative Collections
The Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation (IPLC) provides access to a rich and unique record of human thought and creativity. Building upon these libraries’ histories of collaboration through subject-specific collection initiatives, and the successful resource-sharing network, BorrowDirect, the IPLC Collection Development Group provides leadership and strategy for coordinated and cooperative collection development and management.
Our goal is to effectively and efficiently use our collective and limited resources to create a networked infrastructure that increases management of, and access to, the dynamic collection that underpins the research ecosystem of Ivy Plus institutions.
Vision
The Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation embraces a vision for collaborative collection development and management which recognizes our preeminent academic research and special collections as one great collection in support of the teaching, research and public missions of our respective institutions and the global scholarly community. The IPLC endeavors to implement projects and initiatives which, in time, will move research materials in a variety of formats ‘above the institution’ to embed them in a networked infrastructure that fosters collaboration, cooperation and consolidation in support of building and providing access to distinctive academic research collections.
Governance
The IPLC Collection Development Group (CD Group) is composed of representatives from each participating member institution. The primary representative is the institution’s chief collection development officer. An institution may appoint a second member, and each institution has one vote regardless of the number of representatives.
Each year representatives elect a vice-chair/chair-elect each who serves progressive roles (chair- elect, chair, immediate past chair) for a three-year term. The immediate past chair, along with the incumbent chair and vice-chair, serve as a de facto executive committee, which plans and steers the work of the larger group. The Director of Collections Initiatives (DCI) serves as an ex officio, non-voting member of the group and the executive committee.
History
In fall 2014, the assistant and associate university librarians (AULs) of collections at the BorrowDirect participating institutions sent a proposal to their Library Directors that – based on the success of BorrowDirect and efforts of BorrowDirect AULs to work collaboratively going back to 2008 – sought support to expand work on collaborative, collective collections. The result was that the Library Directors subsequently asked the AULs of collections to draft a business plan for their initiatives and renamed the group: “Ivy Plus Libraries Collection Development Group” with representatives from each of the 13 cooperating institutions in the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation.