The Reboot Team hosted two virtual town hall events to foster community discussion and gather feedback on the manifesto. Over 150 resource sharing professionals joined from a diverse array of libraries. These town halls followed the Chatham House Rule and were not recorded, but below is a summary of the events:

• The town halls were held on November 19th with 76 attendees and December 3rd with 82 attendees. 
• Over 75% of the town hall attendees were interacting with RRSI for the first time! Other attendees had previously filled out the STAR Checklist or attended a past event.
• The town halls started with an overview of the RRSI Reboot Team’s efforts, including unveiling RRSI’s new logo and website design, a review of the updated and past manifesto, and a brief history of RRSI. The floor was then opened for discussion of the updated manifesto. 

Of the issues raised at both town hall meetings regarding the updated manifesto, these ideas seemed to resonate the most with attendees:

Interoperability

• Concerns about reliance on vendors/proprietary systems and networks to participate in ILL
• System interoperability would be a good addition to the manifesto
• However, we can influence something like interoperability, but we can’t control it. Is this a value that belongs in the manifesto?
• Many libraries have outsourced the technical skills required to obtain interoperability. Libraries may need to equip themselves (perhaps within library consortia, not individual libraries) to contribute to technical solutions.
• Crosslink (IDS Network) was mentioned as an example of a tool for interoperability developed by the library community

Ebooks

• Ebook lending standards (clear and consistent language allowing resource sharing to include in electronic resource licenses)
• Consistent ebook format across vendors (full book download possible; DRM free)
• The Boston Library Consortium is making progress with their recent work on ebook lending
• Vendors benefit from inconsistency and vagueness in licenses; the simpler and more unified we could be (i.e. by referring to compliance with a standard), the more consistent for ebook licensing.

Miscellaneous

• These draft values seem applicable to the realities of funding, staffing, technology, workflows, and patron needs
• PALCI consortium recently released their Digital Sharing Strategy, which includes many of these same values
• The values of “equitable” and “collaborative” stood out to one solo ILL practitioner at a small library as a way of ensuring that their patrons have access to resources and that all practitioners have access to training
• Important to include a nod to reference services (as was in the original manifesto) – providing additional support beyond a “no”
• Could “affordability” be a value? We can advocate for it, but we lack control over it
• Recommend taking a stronger stance on “advocacy” as a value in the manifesto

Attendees also expressed a number of other more general thoughts, outside of the manifesto discussion:

• Keep holding these types of events intended for practitioners; future town halls
• Hold future town halls or events like this, but specifically exclude vendors or only include them as part of a panel discussion
• Several people expressed support for these consortium-agnostic town halls and that they felt heard at these events
• One person expressed that consortium-agnostic events like these are “so helpful and important for getting us out of our silos.”
• People noted that resource sharing practitioners tend to be collaborative and supportive

What’s next?

The RRSI Reboot Team is currently reviewing feedback submitted through the online form and provided at the Town Halls. We plan to discuss and revise RRSI’s updated manifesto, with an aim to publish a finalized version in Spring 2026.

Resource Sharing connects us. It’s a Community of library practitioners, vendors, physical shipping partners, and so many more people. It is vital to helping countless patrons across different library types, size, and location across the United States and beyond access the information they want for education, getting a job, just enjoying a book and/or countless other reasons.  The more effective we can share, the more we can share positively impacting even more patrons. In the early 2000s, a small group of librarians, library techies, and vendor colleagues brainstormed on challenges and what was needed to help the community leap into the future which led to the publication of a white paper. The Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative (RRSI) was born which would lead efforts to dream, think, and act in vendor, system, technology, and group neutral ways.

A Manifesto was drafted that was discussed in a range of venues to help the Resource Sharing Community think individually and as a Community. This led to development of the STAR Checklist which had a major impact. Over 250 libraries utilized the tool to evaluate their operations. Multiple participants reported back on how the Checklist helped them make local changes to practice, technology, policies, obtain greater local support and more leading to improved service and efficiencies. The Checklist was also regularly presented on at major resource sharing conferences in the United States and internationally. These presentations sparked thoughtful discussions amongst attendees. It was popular enough that an updated version was created that led to similar results.

RRSI collaborations and/or hosted discussions were just as important as the Checklist in providing for space and time to think about the important guiding themes presented by the original group and further developed over time in the Community. This helped individuals and the Community in the present as well as consider what was needed for the future.

We all know collaboration is key in resource sharing. RRSI had a variety of collaborations over the first 20 years including with an ALA RUSA STARS committee which was vital for continual conversation especially related to policy.

 RRSI tried new ways of conversation such as themed Twitter discussions hosted by Tom Bruno. Wow, those were very thought provoking in allowing multiple participants to throw out ideas and respond to each other in real time. RRSI tried to think of ways to both help the conversation as well as consider new ways of engagement which the Twitter conversations definitely did.

There were a number of other efforts over the first 15 years that you can read about elsewhere on the RRSI website. You’ll see key themes across those efforts including trying to keep us connected as a Community even as many libraries migrated towards more group and vendor specific efforts.

The pandemic ground RRSI activity almost to a halt though as people rightfully focused on taking care of themselves, family, others, and eventually getting services going again.

Perhaps it was fitting that a final effort before RRSI went on hiatus due to the pandemic was our Future of ILL (Walled Gardens?) virtual discussions in 2021 co-led by Tom Bruno and I. Wow. We had incredible levels of participation from resource sharing practitioners, vendor friends, tech friends, and more. The participation even overwhelmed our Google Docs setup to capture real-time comments. The Resource Sharing Community turned out and participants shared fears, hopes, and dreams.

Ideas shared by the participants in those 2021 virtual discussions helped illuminate how lasting the vision was from the original group who created RRSI. In addition, it reinforced how important it was to have had learning and engagement opportunities over the years following the RRSI kick-off. Many participants were eager for Community efforts that were broader than specific technologies, vendors, and groups which support the neutral vision for RRSI.

I’m enjoying retirement but I definitely look forward to the exciting RRSI Reboot underway. We are facing more challenges than ever, but this Community has shown through the decades that through shared learning, dreaming, and action we can continue, and grow the collective work that ultimately helps all of our patrons’ lives. Good luck and look for opportunities to engage with others via RRSI!

Lars Leon
Resource Sharing Librarian (retired)
University of Kansas Libraries
lleon@ku.edu

Perhaps you are:

• Completely new to the library world and just starting out in interlibrary loan (known, alternately, as resource sharing) and want help and pointers for learning the basics.
• Someone who has worked in libraries for a fair few years, but has recently shifted to working in resource sharing, or (in this era of workplace consolidations) has found interlibrary loan now under your umbrella of responsibilities and are looking to deepen your knowledge and understanding. 
• An experienced resource sharing practitioner and are looking to further refine your best practices, or to glean new information to promote the values of resource sharing and advocate for the importance of interlibrary loan up the org chart within your institution, or to share your wisdom with the broader community.

Maybe you are at:

• an academic research library
• a public library
• a medical library 
• a law library
• a tribal library 
• an art library
• a special library 
• a museum
• an archive
• or are a member of a library consortium

RRSI is here for you. 

Manifesto 

Et hoc credimus – and this we believe – the RRSI statement of intent and hope. Now rethought and rejuvenated (and open for public comment).

The Checklist

How good are your best practices? What would you like to learn about interlibrary loan for your shop? Would you like to see what other institutions are doing, in order to help you advocate for similar services at your library? The Checklist is actively being refreshed and updated for you. 

You are RRSI. We are RRSI. And we are back!

Mark your calendars!

Please register to join us at one (or both!) of the upcoming Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative (RRSI) town halls to be (re)introduced to RRSI and discuss the updated Manifesto. See our Events page for full details.

November 19th, 2025 (11am ET): https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/CKO9VYdxR2yq0tEspnI0vA

December 3rd, 2025 (4pm ET): https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/FfD20_9iTii_R_CFG0hHNA 

You can find information on the takeaways of those conversations on the RRSI April Future ILL Virtual Conversations page and the NW ILL & RS Conference Sept 2021 ILL Virtual Conversations page.

The RRSI will be stepping back from its work to help out at our own institutions while we all try to grapple with this new and prolonged reality. Take care, all of you.

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.

Continue to the full 2018 Rethinking Resource Sharing Innovation Award Announcement for more information on our winners.