News Release
The Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative 2013 Innovation Award Recognizes IDS Project for Regional User Groups IDS Project develops innovative solution to expand its capacity for training and support
Toronto, July 8, 2013 —The Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative has announced that the winner of the Rethinking Resource Sharing (RRS) 2013 Innovation Award is the IDS Project, for its Regional User Group development.
Headquartered in New York State, the Information Delivery Services (IDS) Project is a mutually supportive resource-sharing cooperative whose 73 members include public and private academic libraries, the New York Public Library, and the New York State Library. The Project is based on a strong sense of community among its members and a unified collection perspective. The major goal of the Project is to continually implement and objectively evaluate innovative resource-sharing strategies, policies and procedures that will optimize mutual access to the information resources of all IDS Project libraries and help strengthen the broader resource sharing community, as well.
The IDS Regional User Groups grew out of a need to expand the capacity of the IDS Project Mentor Program to foster the development and implementation of best practices among its growing membership and across a large geographic area. In addition to individual mentors, Regional User Groups now provide a platform to share expertise regarding borrowing and lending best practices as well as ILLiad, OCLC and IDS Project productivity enhancements and performance measures. Currently, three Regional User Groups have been established to combine the strengths of the Mentor Program with the extensive knowledge base of IDS Project members.
IDS Regional User Group sessions are offered in a geographically convenient workshop setting, with member presentations, hands-on activities and a Workflow Toolkit binder to help participants gain experience with new features and customization of ILLiad as well as with other ILL best practices.
The Innovation Award recognizes the IDS Regional User Group initiative for embodying the principles of the Rethinking Resource Sharing manifesto by leveraging the extensive knowledge of IDS Project members to improve access to and delivery of resources within their consortium and by providing a training roadmap for the broader resource sharing community, as well.
This award comes with a $500 stipend, and honors individuals or institutions for changes they have made to improve users’ access to information through resource sharing in their library, consortium, state or country. The award winner was recognized for their resource sharing efforts at ALA Annual in Chicago, on Saturday, June 29, 2013, during the ILL Discussion Group meeting, where Mark Sullivan, Executive Director of the IDS Project, accepted the certificate and stipend.
Funding for the 2013 Innovation Award is provided by Relais International.
The Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative is an international ad hoc group that advocates for a complete rethink of the way libraries conduct resource sharing in the context of the global Internet revolution and related developments.