Library Consortium Update – Fall 2021

Amy Beadle, Director

Welcome back. I hope that you all are adjusting to being back in school – whatever that looks like for your college!

DEI Proposal
As most of you are (hopefully) aware, the League submitted a proposal for federal funding to purchase $1 million of DEI-focused resources late last spring. While none of our congressional members opted to fund the proposal, Senator Padilla expressed interest. We have been working with his staff over the last few months and the Senator included our funding in his request to the Senate Committee on Appropriations. We are so grateful to the Senator and his staff for their generous support. If funding is finalized, we will ask for participation on a committee to evaluate possible content for purchase. League staff is continuing to monitor progress and process and should know more in the next four-six weeks. 

Operations
We have a new CCLC Library Consortium team member. Marissa Jackson has joined us an Account Specialist. She comes with great experience working with statewide technology projects in our system such as CVC/OEI, CCC Assess and you might even remember her from the LSP project in its early stages. We’re thrilled to welcome her to the team. Marissa’s primary focus will be to serve as the link between Consortia Manager and our accounting software; as well as to ensure that our vendor accounts are reconciled and paid in a timely manner. As she gains experience, she will become responsible for invoices and credit memos as well. 

LSP Funding
We are continuing to work with the Chancellor’s Office on LSP funding. They are currently reviewing our proposed Scope of Work. Funding will not be dispersed until early Spring 2022, so we will be using that time to plan and survey the field about statewide technology needs to complement/improve our functionality as a library consortium. More information to come as it becomes available.

Calendar Year Renewals and New Products
Vendors are finalizing their pricing for January 2022. Renewal and new pricing will be available in Consortia Manager by September 30th and due by October 29th. We will host a webinar in October as well as bookable office hours to assist you with your orders.

Consortia Manager
We’ve been meeting with Consortia Manager leadership and development frequently. They have implemented some improvements that are beginning to assist our internal processes, as well as working with us to find ways to improve our members experience with the platform. When the Consortium first implemented the software, we opted to purchase the most basic version. We’re now looking at additional modules that will improve our workflow and provide a better end-user experience. More to come on that during a Wednesday Webinar later this fall.

CCLC LibGuide
All LSP project documentation was moved over to the new CCLC LibGuide. Many thanks to Caroline Sinay Gudiel and our amazing Work Group Leads/members for managing that process. It was a tremendous task to bring over all of that historic documentation from the previous LSP Wiki. Please take a look at: https://caccleague.libguides.com/LSP.

Wednesday Webinars
Our Wednesday Webinar series is back, as of September 1. If you missed previous webinars, you can find the recordings here: https://caccleague.libguides.com/LSP/eventrecordings

Upcoming Webinars include:

• September 29, Gale All-Access Program
• October 6, O’Reilly for Higher Ed, ProQuest Central and Academic Video Online
• October 13, Using Alma Analytics for the Chancellor's Report

We are soliciting topics for upcoming webinars and looking for presenters, so please contact Caroline Sinay Gudiel with your ideas.

Communications
We are always working at improving communications and lessening response time as a library consortium team. A couple of reminders and requests:

The best way to communicate with us if you need something done – is via FreshDesk. The one exception to that is pricing requests for Consortium resources. Please do that via the “Price Request” feature in Consortia Manager. 

Please do not send an email and submit a ticket on the same issue. It slows down all response times if we have to cross-reference and resolve via multiple platforms.

Thank you for bearing with us as we continue to find our way as a growing library consortium.