2018 Rethinking Resource Sharing Innovation Award Announcement

The IDS Project Recognized for IDS Logic and

The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Libraries for Automating Archival Resource Sharing within the Wisconsin Area Research Center Network

NEW ORLEANS, June 25, 2018 —The Rethinking Resource Sharing (RRS) Initiative has announced two winners of the 2018 Rethinking Resource Sharing Innovation Award.  They are the IDS Project for IDS Logic, a highly customizable service that significantly enhances interlibrary loan workflows, and the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Libraries for developing an automated alternative to paper-based archival resource sharing within the Wisconsin Area Research Center Network.

Linda Kopecky, Head of Research Services at UWM Libraries, accepting award on behalf of Aaron Dobbs, Circulation Services Coordinator, from John Brunswick, Atlas, and Sue Kaler, RRSI

The Innovation Award comes with a $500 stipend and honors individuals and/or institutions for improving access to information through resource sharing in their library, consortium, state and/or country. The purpose of the award is to showcase innovation in resource sharing and to encourage other librarians and libraries to make changes in their resource sharing operations to improve information delivery to library users.  This year’s award winners, who will split the stipend amount, were recognized for their innovative contributions to resource sharing at the American Library Association’s 2018 Annual Conference in New Orleans.

The IDS Project, based in New York, is a resource-sharing cooperative whose 110 members

Timothy Jackson, Mark Sullivan, Sue Kaler, John Brunswick, Shannon Pritting, and Michael Mulligan at the IDS Project Conference 2018, Utica College.

include public and private academic libraries from across the country, the New York Public Library, and the New York State Library. 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 libraries.  A four-time Innovation Award winner, the IDS Project and its IDS Logic service offer robust resource sharing automation that, as the RRS Manifesto encourages, enables participating libraries to optimize workflows for fulfilling users’ resource sharing requests.

The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM) Libraries serve as one of 13 Area Research Centers (ARCs) in a unique inter-archives loan program of the Wisconsin Historical Society and the University of Wisconsin System. The UWM Libraries’ development of an automated, user-initiated process for archival lending from traditionally non-circulating collections (archives, special libraries, etc.) clearly exemplifies the RRS Manifesto principles encouraging the lowest possible barriers to fulfillment of users’ requests and the sharing of resources among cultural institutions of all sorts.

Funding for the 2018 Innovation Award is generously provided by Atlas Systems, developers of software solutions for libraries, including ILLiad for managing interlibrary loan and document delivery services, Ares for course reserves, and Aeon for special collections.

This year, the Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative also awarded three Honorable Mentions to the following institutions:

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.

CONTACT: Sue Kaler
508-357-2121 ext. 315
sue@masslibsystem.org